Climate Range Shifts Create Hybrids

Updated: 2025.10.09 13D ago 2 sources
As warming pushes species’ ranges into new overlap zones, previously isolated animals are starting to interbreed. Texas biologists documented a wild blue jay–green jay hybrid linked to both species expanding northward, signaling that climate change can assemble novel ecological communities. — It shows climate change is not just about temperatures but about reconfiguring biodiversity, complicating species protection, invasive‑species policy, and how we measure ecological loss.

Sources

The Pizzly Bears and Grue Jays of the Future
Katharine Gammon 2025.10.09 95% relevant
The article documents a confirmed wild hybrid between a male blue jay and a female green jay near San Antonio, discovered by UT researchers and published in Ecology and Evolution, explicitly tied to the green jay’s ~124‑mile northward range shift under warming.
Climate Change Spurs Rare Hybrid Between Blue Jay and Green Jay
BeauHD 2025.09.30 100% relevant
UT Austin study in Ecology and Evolution confirms a blue jay–green jay hybrid near San Antonio, noting green jays have moved ~100 miles (~2° latitude) north since 2000.
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