british birds

tags: researchblogging.org, phylogeny, British birds, population decline, range contraction, Gavin H Thomas An adult male Eurasian blackbird, Turdus merula. Image: Wikipedia commons [larger view]. A paper recently published by British scientist, Gavin Thomas, a population biologist at Imperial College London, finds that British bird species that currently are suffering population declines tend to be close relatives of each other. The reason is obvious: closely related species tend to share many traits, such as very precise habitat requirements, and what's bad for one species is also bad…