【推荐2】For breeding (繁殖) birds, timing is everything. Most species have just a narrow window to get the food they need to feed chicks. Now, after analyzing data that span from 1975 to 2017, a science team suggests that as the climate warms, birds are not only breeding earlier, but their breeding windows are also narrowed—some by as many as 4 to 5 days.

On average, the beginnings and ends of the breeding periods are occurring earlier in the year. However, the ends are shifting back faster than the beginnings, resulting in an average breeding window that is 1.7 days shorter in 2017 than it was in 1975. During that same period, Finland’s average temperature rose by 0.8℃, suggesting many bird species are actively responding to changing temperatures, Hällfors, who led the team, says.

“It’s good for the species if it’s able to follow the optimum conditions as the climate changes,” she says. However, the shorter breeding windows mean more birds are breeding earlier in the season—a risky time for chicks’ survival, especially if the weather turns suddenly cold. In addition, because many late-season species are shifting their breeding windows up, that could mean more competition for food and nesting sites early on, leaving some chicks to go hungry.

Lucyna Halupka, an ecologist at the University of Wroclaw, calls the study “a very important paper” because it’s one of the few ways to measure the breeding period duration. For 2 decades, she says, many scientists studying birds and climate change have looked only at the earliest, median (中间的), or mean laying dates for specific groups of birds. However, she reminds that because the study is limited to Finland, the findings may not apply universally; future studies should examine how breeding seasons move in other regions where the effect of climate change is different. They should also try to determine how shifting breeding windows affect population sizes, she says.

【推荐3】The number of fish caught just outside a recently expanded marine (海洋) protected area in Hawaii has risen. It is a sign that quadrupling (四倍) the size of the reserve in 2016 may have shored fish populations in the region.

When the Marine National Monument around Hawaii was enlarged to 1,510,000 square kilometers, marine conservationists around the world rejoiced.

Fishers may have felt differently, however, as fishing inside the area is not allowed. Yet by creating a space for dwindling tuna populations to recover, supporters argued, the reserve would benefit fisheries as well.

As populations inside the reserve boundaries steadily increased, they predicted, the fish would spill (溢出) over into the surrounding areas, increasing the amount of tuna available to catch.

Proving that is tricky, however, as tuna can’t be counted directly. Their numbers may rise or fall for a variety of reasons other than the expansion of a reserve. But the new study, published in Science this week, strongly suggests the number of fish caught just outside the MPA is higher now than it used to be.

Alan Friedlander, chief scientist for the National Geographic Society’s Pristine Seas project, calls the study a “very careful and strict test of spillover from marine protected areas.”

Importantly, says John Lynham, an environmental economist at the University of Hawaii and one of the study’s authors, the increase in tuna catches near the reserve held up even when looking at the average numbers caught by particular fishers. This shows the effect is not due to more effective crews now fishing local waters, he explains. To account for effort, catch numbers were divided by the ever-increasing number of fishing hooks in the area.

Lynham and colleagues found the catch per hook increased over the 10 years of the study. Fishers were catching on average six more yellowfin and five more bigeye tuna per year after the expansion than before.

“That last one, especially, was a surprise,” says Lynham, “because it is economically much more important, and there were fewer indications of an increase.”

【推荐1】The first model of Apple’s iPhone was launched in June 2007. Since then, many different smartphones have been introduced. The devices now influence our daily lives in many ways. One thing that has changed is that many people now use their phones to easily take pictures without the need for a camera. Not surprisingly, this change has caused major business problems for camera manufacturers.

Of course, the camera built into the first iPhone 15 years ago did not include a high-quality camera able to compete with separate camera models. But over the years, smartphone makers have invested heavily in research and development to change that. Today, many smartphones have high-quality cameras designed to produce better pictures. And most phone devices also offer powerful tools to improve the quality of the pictures we take.

Japan’s Camera &Tmaging Products Association (CIPA) said the digital camera market continually expanded starting in 1999. It experienced its first decrease in 2009 — and continued to fall thereafter. The biggest change appeared from 2010 to 2020, when worldwide camera shipments fell about 93 percent, CIPA reported. The decreases were mainly caused by drops in shipments of digital cameras that have built-in lenses.

However, camera makers have had more success selling digital cameras with interchangeable lenses. This is because these cameras are generally targeted at professional photographers who demand higher quality. Such cameras can produce “high image quality that distinguishes them from smartphones,” CIPA said.

But this does not mean that professional photographers never use smartphones to capture pictures. Brynn Anderson is based with the AP in Atlanta, Georgia. She said: “Sometimes being a photographer with a larger camera can be intimidating to the person being photographed. Using a phone makes it easier for me to get comfortable moments that might not happen otherwise.” Rodrigo Abd, an AP photographer in Buenos Aires, Argentina says using the iPhone makes it easier for him “to always be attentive” to everyday events when not covering a news story. Oded Balilty is based in Tel Aviv, Israel. “It is definitely an alternative tool,” he said of the iPhone. But he added: “It’s the photographer not the device, that determines the quality of a photo.”