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Birds at a college changed beak shapes during the pandemic. It might be a case of rapid evolution

Researchers at UCLA found measurable beak-shape shifts in dark-eyed juncos during COVID-19 lockdowns, with birds hatched then developing longer, slender beaks resembling nearby wildland juncos, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.
During the COVID-19 lockdowns, COVID-19 restrictions created a rare natural experiment that cut UCLA campus dining facilities waste, pushing urban juncos toward nearby green spaces and natural diets.
The team says multiple pathways could explain the pattern, including genetic evolution, plasticity, or gene flow from surrounding wildland junco populations, while genetic and behavioral tracking efforts continue.
Shortly after human activity returned, birds hatched during and shortly after reduced human activity showed reversed beak shifts in campus populations, highlighting how urban wildlife traits track human behavior.
Contextualizing the result, authors hypothesize shorter urban beaks suit human food scraps, while pandemic conditions favored natural diets; the study echoes Charles Darwin's finches and recent beak-shape studies, and Pamela Yeh calls for long-term datasets on juncos and genetic research.

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The pandemic may have caused a songbird’s beak to change shape, scientists find

Songbirds on the UCLA campus changed beak shapes during the pandemic, according to a new study. Researchers suspect it might be a case of rapid evolution.

3 months ago·Atlanta, United States

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