Alejandro Rico-Guevara, Biology Assistant Professor, was featured on NPR's "All Things Considered" about research that suggests one species of hummingbird in California has evolved to get the most out of hummingbird feeders, adapting to human influence on its habitat. The study, on which Rico-Guevara is senior author, suggests that human environments have greatly affected the evolution of birds. In the case of Anna's Hummingbirds, their bills have gotten longer and more slender in order to get more food from the feeders.

From the NPR article:

According to a recent study in Global Change Biology, a journal focused on environmental change, the use and prevalence of hummingbird feeders — like those red and clear plastic ones filled with homemade sugar water — changed the size and shape of the birds' beaks. The range of the hummingbird also spread from the southern part of California all the way up the West coast into Canada.

"Very simplified, the bills get longer and they become more slender, and that helps to have a larger tongue inside that can get more nectar from the feeder at a time," says Alejandro Rico-Guevara, a professor of biology at the University of Washington and senior author on the study.

The study, which had been in the works since 2019 and had 16 collaborators across 12 different institutions, also found that the beaks of males grew pointier over time to allow them to fight off competing males at the feeders. The hummingbirds also moved further north, eventually showing up in much cooler temperatures as they chased the growing popularity of the bird feeders. The study also noted the influence of the growing abundance of eucalyptus forests, another human-influenced food source for the hummingbirds as the trees were introduced to California from Australia in the 1900s.

Listen to the interview below, and read the full article on the NPR website.

Related article in Smithsonian Magazine.