How Can Birds Help Monitor the Health of Ecosystems?
Canaries were once used to signal dangers to miners. - Image © Vito Cangiulli, iStockPhoto.com
Canaries were once used to signal dangers to miners. - Image © Vito Cangiulli, iStockPhoto.com
How does this align with my curriculum?
Scientists can observe birds to get useful information about the health of, and changes in, an ecosystem.
The next time you're on your morning walk to school, take a moment to stop and listen to what’s going on around you. What do you hear? Cars driving down the road? Other people walking past you?
One thing that might have slipped your mind is the vibrant chirping coming from birds. Birds and their beautiful songs have become such a normal part of our day that we sometimes forget that they're there.
But birds do more than just give you a nice tune to listen to in the morning (or create annoying noise if you like to sleep in!). Birds play a big role in our environment. Scientists are able to use birds as bioindicators. Bioindicators are species, groups of species or biological processes that scientists can study in order to learn about the surrounding ecosystem.
A good bioindicator is one that is:
- common;
- widely studied; and
- sensitive to what is disturbing or stressing the environment.
Some birds make good bioindicators. This means that scientists can study these birds to learn about the quality of the environment that these birds live in.
Did you know?
Bioindicators include more than just living animals. Bioindicators can also be plants. Plants like lichens can indicate how much pollution is in the air.
Canary in a coal mine
Image- text Version:
Shown is a black and white photograph of a person wearing mining equipment, holding a small cage containing a canary.
The person is holding up the cage with their right hand, and looking into it. The cage is a small cube shape. The canary inside is perched on a branch, looking back at the miner.
The miner is wearing thick gloves and a hard hat with a lamp on the front. A machine with two flexible hoses is strapped to their chest, over a plaid jacket.
Have you ever heard of the saying “canary in a coal mine?” This saying comes from the days when coal miners used canaries to indicate when toxic gas levels (like methane or carbon monoxide) in the coal mines were too high. Canaries are more sensitive to the toxic gases than humans. If the canary became sick or died, the workers knew it was time to exit the coal mine immediately. Even though these birds weren’t exactly used for scientific reasons, they were still important as bioindicators. They literally helped humans stay alive!
Birds and habitat restoration
Birds can also indicate when their environment is healthy and full of life! This is especially important when we want to know whether habitat restoration efforts are paying off.
For example, the Florida Everglades is a huge, rich wetland ecosystem. Humans have created canals and levees in the area for farming, water supplies, and flood control. This has been going on for over a century, and it has really changed the ecosystem.
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Image- text Version:
Shown is a colour photograph of everglades, with an information sign in the foreground.
The landscape is flat and grassy with lots of water. Water stretches from the right side of the image, across and behind the sign on the left side. In the background, the grass looks soaked with water.
The sign is mounted on tall wooden legs in the driest part of the landscape. It reads, “Everglades & Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area”. Below is a black and white logo, and a small square with the words “Conservation Area 3B”. A smaller sign across the bottom reads “In Cooperation with South Florida Water Management District, Miccosukee Tribe of Florida”.
Various projects in the area aim to restore the habitat and bring back original water flow. One result of this would be more shallow areas.
In a 2009 study, scientists showed how birds could indicate whether these restoration efforts were working. Egrets are birds that hunt in deep waters. If scientists saw egrets in the area, they knew that restoration efforts were not successful. Meanwhile, storks and ibises like to hunt in shallow waters. If scientists saw storks or ibises, they knew the water flow was low. That meant restoration efforts were successful.
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Image- text Version:
Shown are three colour photographs of different kinds of “indicator” water birds.
The images are arranged in a row. The left displays two Reddish Egrets standing in shallow water. One is white with black legs and an orange beak. The other has a black body and legs, an orange head and chest, and a pink beak.
The second has a single Wood Stork, standing in long grass. It has white feathers on its back and dark grey feathers on its underbelly. Its head is black and white speckled, with a long orange beak.
The final image is two American White Ibises, one larger and one small. They stand on a shore in front of a body of water. Both birds are white with orange legs and beaks, and the smaller one has dark feathers around its tail.
Summing up
As you can see, birds do more than just sit in trees and sing. They give us a heads-up when our environment is changing. They also give us an opportunity to find solutions to environmental problems before humans get affected. So next time you’re on your walk to school, take a moment to appreciate and listen to the birds chirping. They actually do a lot to protect us!
Starting Points
- Do you have plants or pets in your home or neighbourhood? If so, what clues can they give you about conditions in your home or environment?
- Do you know anyone who works or has worked in a mine? Do you have any concerns for their safety?
- How would you feel if you were in a mine and had to rely on a bird to monitor the air quality around you?
- In the Florida Everglades, scientists studied birds as bioindicators. But in the coal mines, everyday workers paid attention to the canaries. Should non-scientists be trained to pay attention to possible bioindicators in their environment? Or is this work best left to scientists? Explain your answer.
- Why are small animals used as bioindicators? In the past, small horses and donkeys were used in mines. Would they have worked as bioindicator species? Why or why not?
- Research a species that is used today as a bioindicator of environmental health. What is the species? How is it used as a bioindicator? Where is it used most commonly?
- What technology replaced the canaries in the coal mines? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of the technological replacements for canaries?
- Why are we still using living species as bioindicators? What fields of science rely on bioindicators for providing relevant data to make analyzes and scientific claims?
- Perhaps you have heard someone use the expression “the canary in coal mine.” How would you label this type of expression? What does the expression mean?
- This article can be used to support teaching and learning about environmental monitoring of ecosystems. It focuses on the concept of bioindicators, specifically how birds are used as bioindicators.
- Before reading this article, you could introduce the topic using the Connecting & Relating question above as a guide.
- After reading this article students could complete a Concept Definition Web learning strategy to build their understanding of the term bioindicator Download ready-to-use reproducibles using the Concept Definition strategy for this article in [Google doc] and [PDF] formats.
- To go further, students could read the Let's Talk Science STEM in Context article Using Mussels to Monitor the Environment. This article focuses on biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems and introduces the concepts of bioaccumulation and biomagnification.
Connecting and Relating
- Do you have plants or pets in your home or neighbourhood? If so, what clues can they give you about conditions in your home or environment?
- Do you know anyone who works or has worked in a mine? Do you have any concerns for their safety?
- How would you feel if you were in a mine and had to rely on a bird to monitor the air quality around you?
Relating Science and Technology to Society and the Environment
- In the Florida Everglades, scientists studied birds as bioindicators. But in the coal mines, everyday workers paid attention to the canaries. Should non-scientists be trained to pay attention to possible bioindicators in their environment? Or is this work best left to scientists? Explain your answer.
Exploring Concepts
- Why are small animals used as bioindicators? In the past, small horses and donkeys were used in mines. Would they have worked as bioindicator species? Why or why not?
- Research a species that is used today as a bioindicator of environmental health. What is the species? How is it used as a bioindicator? Where is it used most commonly?
Nature of Science/Nature of Technology
- What technology replaced the canaries in the coal mines? What are the advantages and/or disadvantages of the technological replacements for canaries?
- Why are we still using living species as bioindicators? What fields of science rely on bioindicators for providing relevant data to make analyzes and scientific claims?
Media Literacy
- Perhaps you have heard someone use the expression “the canary in coal mine.” How would you label this type of expression? What does the expression mean?
Teaching Suggestions
- This article can be used to support teaching and learning about environmental monitoring of ecosystems. It focuses on the concept of bioindicators, specifically how birds are used as bioindicators.
- Before reading this article, you could introduce the topic using the Connecting & Relating question above as a guide.
- After reading this article students could complete a Concept Definition Web learning strategy to build their understanding of the term bioindicator Download ready-to-use reproducibles using the Concept Definition strategy for this article in [Google doc] and [PDF] formats.
- To go further, students could read the Let's Talk Science STEM in Context article Using Mussels to Monitor the Environment. This article focuses on biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems and introduces the concepts of bioaccumulation and biomagnification.
Learn more
Everglades: go with the flow (2017)
Daniel Allen, for Geographical magazine, writes on how snake populations are being used to look at the overall health of the Florida Everglades.
The Story of the Real Canary in the Coal Mine (2016)
An article for the Smithsonian Institute by Kat Eschner gives a brief historical overview of Canaries being used in coal mines to detect methane gas leaks due to their vulnerabilities to air-borne toxins.
Bioindicators: Using Organisms to Measure Environmental Impacts (2010)
A paper by Emily Holt and published by The Nature Education Knowledge Project which discusses how using different organisms can help us measure environmental impacts.
References
Frederick, P., Gawlik, D., Ogden, J., Cook, M., & Lusk, M. (2009). The white ibis and wood stork as indicators for restoration of the everglades ecosystem. Ecological Indicators, 9(6), S83-S95. DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolind.2008.10.012
Hill, J. (n.d.). Birds as environmental indicators. Environmentalscience.org.