Pandemic escalated teen cyberbullying – Asian Americans targeted most

Study explored cyberbullying trends and whether Asian American youth were disproportionately targeted

Peer-Reviewed Publication

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: SAMEER HINDUJA, PH.D., CO-AUTHOR, PROFESSOR, FAU SCHOOL OF CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE WITHIN THE COLLEGE OF SOCIAL WORK AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, CO-DIRECTOR OF THE CYBERBULLYING RESEARCH CENTER, AND A FACULTY ASSOCIATE AT THE BERKMAN KLEIN CENTER AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY. view more 

CREDIT: ALEX DOLCE, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

Early in the COVID‐19 pandemic, there was a concern that cyberbullying incidents (online threats, mistreatment or harassment) would increase because children were spending more time online. Also, in the midst of a brewing firestorm, the politicization of the link between the COVID‐19 virus and its presumed origination led to a pointed rise in sinophobia (anti-Chinese sentiment) and a documented increase in harassment, bullying, and even personal and property victimization against Asian Americans.

Until now, no research has explored the extent to which cyberbullying experiences increased generally among youth in the United States during the pandemic, and especially whether Asian American youth were disproportionately targeted.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire conducted a first-of-its-kind nationally-representative study of 13- to 17-year-old middle and high school students in public and private schools in the United States. They investigated if these children experienced more cyberbullying during the pandemic compared to prior years. They were especially interested in whether Asian American youth were targeted more.

For the study, researchers tracked experience over time with general cyberbullying, as well as cyberbullying based on race or color. In the 2021 survey, respondents were asked whether they had been cyberbullied more or less since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic.

Results, published in the Journal of School Health, showed that prevalence of cyberbullying victimization in general increased since the beginning of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Specifically, about 17 percent of all youth said they were cyberbullied in 2016 and 2019, but that proportion rose to 23 percent in 2021.

Notably, Asian American youth experienced significantly more cyberbullying than their counterparts since the COVID‐19 pandemic began. In 2019, Asian American youth in the U.S. were the least likely to have experienced cyberbullying (fewer than 10 percent reported being targeted overall and only about 7 percent were targeted because of their race similar to white/Caucasian youth).

In 2021, however, 19 percent of Asian American youth said they had been cyberbullied, and approximately 1 in 4 (23.5 percent) indicated they were victimized online because of their race/color. Additionally, Asian American youth were the only racial group where the majority (59 percent) reported more cyberbullying since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic.

“Race‐based bullying has been linked to traumatic stress, poorer mental health outcomes, and even neurobiological harm,” said Sameer Hinduja, Ph.D., co-author, professor, FAU School of Criminology and Criminal Justice within the College of Social Work and Criminal Justice, co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, and a faculty associate at the Berkman Klein Center at Harvard University. “COVID‐19 racism against Asian Americans is associated with lower psychological well‐being as well as problematic internalizing and externalizing behaviors. In fact, some experts say that this population may be more susceptible to internalizing harm stemming from online victimization because of cultural stigmas among Asian Americans about help‐seeking and mental health needs.”

As more adolescents continue to spend more time online, cyberbullying victimization may increase across all racial groups. In the current politicized environment, Asian Americans may continue to be targeted because of their race.

“COVID-19 will likely not go away anytime soon,” said Hinduja. “We hope findings from our study will further spotlight the reality of cyberbullying experiences among Asian American youth in a way that compels additional actions in school policies, pedagogy, state and federal laws, messaging campaigns, and other program implementations so that these youth are more meaningfully supported.”

Study co-author is Justin W. Patchin, Ph.D., Department of Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center. 

- FAU -

About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.

 

 

---

JOURNAL

Journal of School Health

DOI

10.1111/josh.13249 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Cyberbullying Among Asian American Youth Before and During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Are nutritional warning labels effective at steering consumers away from unhealthful foods?

Study finds that if they do, whether the information is unexpected might be key

INSTITUTE FOR OPERATIONS RESEARCH AND THE MANAGEMENT SCIENCES

Key Takeaways:

• Consumers reduced purchases of breakfast cereals with the new warning labels for unhealthy foods.
• The chocolate and cookie categories did not demonstrate the same impact.
• Lower- and middle-income consumers and families with children are more likely to pay attention to food warning labels.

 

BALTIMORE, MD, October 13, 2022 – In 2016, Chile introduced the gradual implementation of a comprehensive and mandatory food labeling law that was designed to warn consumers of the risks of unhealthy foods. To do so, the law required that if a product contained excessive amounts of certain nutrients (such as sugar), which are considered unhealthful if consumed in large quantities, the product should display mandatory warning labels on the packaging. Moreover, several other countries have already adopted these new warning labels.

This led researchers to wonder whether the new regulation would have any effect. After conducting extensive research, the results showed that the impact of warning labels is different across product categories and demographics. 

The researchers’ study, published in the current issue of the INFORMS journal Marketing Science is titled “Identifying Food Labeling Effects on Consumer Behavior,” and is authored by Sebastian Araya, Carlos Noton and Daniel Schwartz, all of the University of Chile and affiliated to the institutes of Market Imperfections and Public Policy (MIPP) and Complex Engineering Systems (ISCI), and Andres Elberg of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. 

“During the transition toward compliance, store shelves included existing inventories of packaging (without warnings) from before the regulation was enacted, and new products whose packaging was compliant with the new regulation,” says Elberg. “This enabled us to collect daily data on the label status of specific products (at the Universal Product Code [UPC] level) and watch for deviations in purchasing patterns across time and stores.” 

The study authors combined label information with individual-level transaction data from one big-box retailer. They focused on three categories that included many products that were expected to require warning labels: breakfast cereals, chocolates and cookies.

The researchers found that shopper responses to the warning labels varied between the product categories.

“In the breakfast cereal category, the warning labels reduced the purchased volume by 6.2%,” says Schwartz. “In the chocolates and cookies categories, we found inconclusive evidence, meaning we could not see a noticeable impact on sales.” He concludes, “Food labeling information may be necessary but not sufficient to boost consumers’ healthier choices.” 

“The breakfast cereals category revealed the most,” says Noton. “Our estimates from a household analysis indicate that medium- to low-income consumers, along with families with children, are indeed sensitive to warning labels. These findings are based on actual shopping behavior that may differ from what people say they do.”

“This effect is probably best explained by a noticeable shift in purchasing from unhealthy to healthy products, and to a lesser degree, a reduction of purchase in that category,” adds Araya.

 

 

Link to Study

 

About INFORMS and Marketing Science

Marketing Science is a premier peer-reviewed scholarly marketing journal focused on research using quantitative approaches to study all aspects of the interface between consumers and firms. It is published by INFORMS, the leading international association for operations research and analytics professionals. More information is available at www.informs.org or @informs.

 

# # #

Global hunger, carbon emissions could both spike if war limits grain exports

Peer-Reviewed Publication

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: AMANI ELOBEID IS A TEACHING PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AT IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY. view more 

CREDIT: IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY

AMES, Iowa — If Russia's invasion and the ensuing war significantly reduce Ukrainian grain exports, surging prices could increase food insecurity and carbon dioxide emissions, as marginal land is pushed into crop production.

That's the chain reaction predicted by modeling from a research team that includes Amani Elobeid, a teaching professor of economics at Iowa State University. An article about their projections was published recently in Nature Food, an academic journal.

Elobeid said she and her colleagues — Jerome Dumortier of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Miguel Carriquiry of the University of the Republic in Uruguay — ran their models shortly after the start of the invasion in February in hopes of estimating the impact on global grain markets and the subsequent climate implications.

"We're trying to present a more complete picture of what this war is costing the world," she said.

Ukraine, sometimes called the "bread basket of Europe," is a major exporter of wheat and corn. A deal struck with Russia in July aims to allow Ukrainian grain shipments, but it's unclear how effective it will be at limiting the war's impact on exports. For the study, researchers examined four potential outcomes: a 50% drop in Ukrainian exports and three scenarios assuming no Ukrainian exports in combination with other related situations or responses, such as a reduction in biofuel production in the U.S. and Europe or a 50% drop in Russian grain exports.

Their models estimate how changes in global agricultural markets impact production, trade, food consumption and prices — which in turn affect what land is used for crops. When the price of corn goes up due to a shortage, for instance, dense Brazilian forests are likelier to be razed for farming because there's an incentive to expand production.

Depending on the scenario, the cost of wheat would rise up to 7.2%, while the price hike for corn could reach 4.6%. Elobeid said those spikes would be on top of already rising food costs and would disproportionally worsen hunger in poorer countries in Africa and the Middle East, regions which rely heavily on grain imports from Ukraine. 

"In the U.S., an additional 5% increase in food prices might not be that alarming. But in countries that are extremely poor and have high levels of food insecurity, even a 1% increase is very significant," she said.

Globally, the amount of new land used for growing crops under the scenarios studied would range from 16.3 million to 45 million acres, causing an average estimated increase in carbon emissions between 527 million and 1.6 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to the study.

In wealthier countries, increased subsidies for lower-income households would help counteract higher food prices, but that's not an option in poorer nations, Elobeid said. Removing trade restrictions and implementing policies such as temporarily reducing biofuel mandates would help reduce grain prices worldwide and limit land-use changes that drive up carbon emissions. The most effective policy response, however, is clear yet elusive.

"The obvious solution is for the conflict to end," she said.

---

JOURNAL

Nature Food

DOI

10.1038/s43016-022-00600-0 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Trade scenarios compensating for halted wheat and maize exports from Russia and Ukraine increase carbon emissions without easing food insecurity

Europe’s high mortality linked to antimicrobial resistance needs action now

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION

SEATTLE, Wash., OCT.  2022 –– The latest and most comprehensive analysis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and its impact in the entire WHO European Region (53 countries) was published in a peer-reviewed paper today in The Lancet Global Health. Researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, Oxford Centre for Global Health Research, Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, and other collaborators analyzed 23 bacterial pathogens and 88 pathogen-drug combinations to release the following findings:

• Highest mortality rates both attributable to and associated with AMR were in Eastern Europe, followed by Central Europe.
• 541,000 deaths were associated with bacterial AMR.
• 133,000 deaths were attributable to bacterial AMR.
• 195,000 deaths from bloodstream infections were associated with AMR.
• 127,000 deaths from intra-abdominal infections were associated with AMR.
• 120,000 deaths from respiratory infections were associated with AMR.
• Seven leading pathogens were responsible for 457,000 deaths associated with AMR.

• Methicillin-resistant S. aureus was the leading pathogen-drug combination in 27 countries for deaths attributable to AMR.
• Aminopenicillin-resistant E. coli was the leading pathogen-drug combination in 47 countries for deaths associated with AMR.

In general, countries with national actions plans had lower rates of AMR burden, but further efforts are needed. Some of those strategies include better monitoring, improving hygiene and sanitation, expanding access to vaccines, and developing new treatments.

This is the first country-level analysis following the peer-reviewed paper on the global burden of AMR published in January in The Lancet. More country-level estimates are to follow.

AMR will be a topic of discussion at the World Health Summit (WHS) taking place in Berlin, Germany Oct. 16–18. IHME Professor Dr. Mohsen Naghavi will address the global impact at the WHS on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022 at 11 a.m. CEST / 5 a.m. EDT.

Journalists can contact media@healthdata.org for interviews with the authors.        

Journalists can access the embargoed paper now.

---

JOURNAL

The Lancet Global Health

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance in the WHO European region in 2019: a cross-country systematic analysis

A new kind of wood-based plastic could enable circular home furnishings and building materials

Peer-Reviewed Publication

KTH, ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: PETER OLSÉN, A RESEARCHER AT KTH, HOLDS UP A SAMPLE PIECE OF A NEW DEGRADABLE PLASTIC FROM WOOD. “THESE NEW MATERIALS, BECAUSE OF THEIR HIGH FIBER CONTENT AND DEGRADABLE, MATRIX COULD BE A GAME CHANGER FOR A FUTURE CIRCULAR MATERIAL ECONOMY," HE SAYS. view more 

CREDIT: WALLENBERG WOOD SCIENCE CENTER, KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

Plastics used in home furnishings and constructions materials could be replaced with a new kind of wood-based degradable plastic with semi-structural strength. Unlike thermoplastic, the material can be broken down without harm to the environment, researchers in Sweden have reported.

One of the goals of renewable wood composite development is to make materials strong enough to replace fossil-based materials used in home construction and furnishing, such as bathroom cabinets, doors, wall-boards and countertops. And it needs to be sustainable, or circular.

“Degradability enables circularity,” says Peter Olsén, a researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. “By degrading the plastic, the fibers can be recycled and the chemical components from the plastic reused.”

High fiber content is the key to the strength of materials like fiberglass, but it’s difficult to deliver a degradable wood composite without intensive heat damage from processes like melt-compounding.  

Olsén and fellow researchers at KTH report that they’ve found a way to deliver both high fiber content and degradability.

“No one has been able to make a degradable plastic with fiber content this high before, while having good dispersion and low fiber damage,” Olsén says. “This enabled the material properties to be improved dramatically compared to previous attempts.”

In order to achieve higher fiber content, the researchers combined polymer chemistry with process technology similar to what is used for carbon fiber composites.

Everything is based on cheap and available raw materials, Olsén says. The degradation products  are also harmless to the environment, and can be reused—enabling what Olsén calls “a fully-circular product concept.”

And it could actually save trees. “It invites recycling of wood fibers to enable reformation of the material,” he says.

But in order to move on to commercialization, Olsén says the formula needs to be optimized. “The key to the work is that it shows a new way of how we can create degradable biocomposites with high fiber content,” he says.

Their findings were reported recently in the scientific journal, Nature Communications.

---

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-33283-z 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Highly reinforced and degradable lignocellulose biocomposites by polymerization of new polyester oligomers

Vocal communication originated over 400 million years ago

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

 

IMAGE: TUATARA ARE FOUND ONLY ON NEW ZEALAND ISLANDS AND ARE CONSIDERED LIVING FOSSILS. THEY ALSO COMMUNICATE ACOUSTICALLY. view more 

CREDIT: GABRIEL JORGEWICH COHEN, UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH

The use of vocalizations as a resource for communication is common among several groups of vertebrates: singing birds, croacking frogs, or barking dogs are some well-known examples. These vocalizations play a fundamental role in parental care, mate attraction and various other behaviors. Despite its importance, little is known about when and at what stage in the evolutionary history of vertebrates this behavior first appeared. Comparative analyses can provide insights into the evolutionary origin of acoustic communication, but they are often plagued by missing information from key groups that have not been broadly studied.

Acoustic abilities are widespread in land vertebrates

An international research team led by the University of Zurich (UZH) has therefore focused on species that have never been accessed before. Their study includes evidence for 53 species of four major clades of land vertebrates – turtles, tuataras, caecilians and lungfishes – in the form of vocal recordings and contextual behavioral information accompanying sound production. “This, along with a broad literature-based dataset including 1800 different species covering the entire spectrum shows that vocal communication is not only widespread in land vertebrates, but also evidence acoustic abilities in several groups previously considered non-vocal,” says first author Gabriel Jorgewich-Cohen, PhD student at the Paleontological Institute and Museum of UZH. Many turtles, for example, which were thought to be mute are in fact showing broad and complex acoustic repertoires.

Last common ancestor lived about 407 million years ago

To investigate the evolutionary origins of acoustic communication in vertebrates, the researchers combined relevant data on the vocalization abilities of species like lizards, snakes, salamanders, amphibians, and dipnoi with phylogenetic trait reconstruction methods. Combined with data of well-known acoustic clades like mammals, birds, and frogs, the researchers were able to map vocal communication in the vertebrate tree of life. “We were able to reconstruct acoustic communication as a shared trait among these animals, which is at least as old as their last common ancestor that lived approximately 407 million years before present,” explains Marcelo Sánchez, who led the study.

Acoustic communication did not evolve multiple times

So far, the scientific consensus favored a convergent origin of acoustic communication among vertebrates since the morphology in hearing apparatus and its sensitivity as well as the vocal tract morphology vary considerably among vertebrates. But according to the UZH researchers, the available evidence for this hypothesis lacks relevant data from key species so far considered non-vocal or neglected. “Our results now show that acoustic communication did not evolve multiple times in diverse clades, but has a common and ancient evolutionary origin,” concludes Sánchez.

CAPTION

The researchers were even able to detect acoustic communication in lungfish. (Image: Rafael C.B. Paradero)

CREDIT

Rafael C.B. Paradero

JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41593-022-01177-4 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Common evolutionary origin of acoustic communication in choanate vertebrates

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Oct-2022

As sea ice retreats, narwhals are changing their migration patterns

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

 

IMAGE: NARWHALS AT PLAY view more 

CREDIT: MARIE AUGER-MÉTHÉ

Narwhals are changing their migration patterns in response to pressure from changing Arctic climates, a new UBC report has found.

Narwhals are the perfect Arctic animal for a migration study. These culturally-significant whales are considered to be among the most sensitive Arctic marine mammals to the effects of climate change. They are thought to live over 100 years old, and are seasonally migratory, with migratory patterns that include travel from shallow, ice-free waters to wintering grounds with over 95 per cent ice coverage. Since narwhals can be so long-lived, changes in behaviour may be one of the few recourses to adjust to the new normal of a changing Arctic.

The timing of migration appears to be changing over the longer time frame, matching changes in climate-driven sea-ice loss across the region. This study used satellite measurement devices to observe narwhal behaviour, including when they switched their behaviour into a migratory mode, when they left the summering areas, and how direct their movements were. 

“We looked at satellite tracking data spanning 21 years from the Canadian Arctic, and found significant delays in the timing of narwhal autumn migrations, where narwhals were remaining longer in their summer areas at a rate of 10 days per decade,” said Dr. Courtney Shuert, lead author and post-doctoral fellow in the Statistical Ecology Research Group in the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF). “There were also sex-specific differences in departures, with the male narwhals starting the migration out of the summering areas, while females potentially with dependent young departing later by almost a week.”

Narwhals have shown a preference for cold water, and their space use is largely tempered by ice cover and the availability of open water regions. As a result, narwhals may be residing in coastal waters within the larger summering areas, until ice formation in the autumn and an increasing risk of entrapment, forces movement over deeper water towards the wintering areas in central Baffin Bay. 

These changes in habit predictability due to climate shifts that have resulted in narwhals remaining longer in their summering areas, likely adjusting within a single individual lifetime, and will help us better understand how marine mammals in the High Arctic are adapting to climate change, Shuert said.

Does this change in behaviour means that narwhals will be able to adapt to climate change? “Unfortunately, departing later is not necessarily good news for the narwhal,” said Dr. Marie Auger-Méthé, senior author and an associate professor in the IOF. “Because staying in the summering grounds could results in further exposure to shipping traffic associated with the new iron mine, it may not be beneficial to the narwhals in the long term. We know they are sensitive to shipping disturbance, and that their stress levels have been rising over the part 20 years. In addition, staying in their summering grounds longer could increase the chance of narwhals being caught in quickly freezing ice. Such ice entrapments can kill hundreds of narwhals.”

Climate change and loss of sea ice is creating stressors for these animals, and they are adapting to a new life in the Arctic. “Natural resource exploitation, ice breaking, and tourism are also impacting narwhal migratory patterns, “Auger-Méthé said. “Climate change and increased human exposure are creating additional stress for these whales, and with it, comes consequences for human activity as well.”

Decadal migration phenology of a long-lived Arctic icon keeps pace with climate change, was published in the Proceedings of The National Academy of Sciences.

Narwhal calf

Narwhal tusks

Narwhal mother with calf

CREDIT

Marie Auger-Méthé

---

JOURNAL

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

DOI

10.1073/pnas.2121092119 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Meta-analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Decadal migration phenology of a long-lived Arctic icon keeps pace with climate change

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

24-Oct-2022

Study: migrating birds attracted by light pollution face higher toxic chemical exposure

Gulf of Mexico states of special concern

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: TOWNSEND'S WARBLER view more 

CREDIT: CRAIG KERNS, CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY

Ithaca, NY—The journeys of night-migrating birds are already fraught with danger. Light pollution adds yet another hazard beyond the increased risk of collisions with buildings or communication towers. According to a new study, birds attracted by the glow of artificial light at night are drawn into areas where they are also exposed to higher concentrations of airborne toxic chemicals. The study has just been published in the journal Global Change Biology.
 
"We examined the correlation between the concentration of airborne toxic chemicals, artificial light at night, and the weekly abundance of 165 nocturnally migrating songbird species," said lead author Frank La Sorte at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "What we found is that light pollution does indeed increase exposure to toxic chemicals when birds stop to rest during spring and fall migration. Surprisingly, we also found that exposure to toxic chemicals is high during the non-breeding season, a time when birds typically avoid light pollution."

The researchers first compared levels of artificial light at night with the presence of 479 toxic chemicals from 15,743 releasing facilities across the continental United States. They found that higher light pollution did correlate with higher levels of airborne toxic chemicals. The scientists then cross-referenced these data with the weekly abundance of 165 night migrating songbird species throughout their annual life cycles, using data from the Cornell Lab's eBird program.
 

 

CAPTION

Comparison: Map (a) shows the total concentration of ground-level airborne toxic chemicals and (b) shows the radiance of artificial light at night within the contiguous United States for the year 2020.

CREDIT

Source: La Sorte, F. A. et. al. (2022). Light pollution enhances ground- level exposure to airborne toxic chemicals for nocturnally migrating passerines. Global Change Biology.

CAPTION

Attraction to light pollutions exposes some. migratory birds to increased levels of airborne toxic chemicals.

CREDIT

Courtesy EPA

The only time that did not reveal increased exposure to toxic chemicals was during the breeding season when songbirds typically nest in habitats away from areas of intense human activity. 

"One region of special concern is along the Gulf of Mexico, especially in Texas and Louisiana," said La Sorte. "Migratory birds that spend the winter in this region are being exposed to higher concentrations of airborne toxic chemicals for a longer period—the non-breeding season makes up the largest portion of these species' annual life cycles."
 
Studies have shown that air pollution has caused some species to stop migrating, change migration altitude, or alter their course. Long-term exposure to toxic chemicals can interfere with cell and organ function, and contamination can carry over to young through the transfer of chemicals from a nesting female to her eggs.
 
In total, the study shows that observations provided by volunteer eBird participants are allowing scientists to better understand the full range of implications of light pollution for night migrating birds.
 
"Efforts to reduce light pollution during the spring and autumn would reduce the chances of toxic chemical contamination during migration stopovers, which would improve survival and reproductive success," La Sorte said. "However, this would have no effect on the long-term exposure occurring along the U.S. Gulf Coast, a region that could be a significant source of toxic chemical contamination for North American birds."
 
This work was supported by The Wolf Creek Charitable Foundation and the National Science Foundation.
 
Reference:
La Sorte, F. A., Lepczyk, C. A., & Aronson, M. F. J. (2022). Light pollution enhances ground-level exposure to airborne toxic chemicals for nocturnally migrating passerines. Global Change Biology, 00, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16443  

---

JOURNAL

Global Change Biology

DOI

10.1111/gcb.16443 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Animals

ARTICLE TITLE

Light pollution enhances ground-level exposure to airborne toxic chemicals for nocturnally migrating passerines

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

25-Oct-2022