'Scientists have long worried whether animals can respond to the planet’s changing climate. Now, a new study reports that at least one species of songbird—and likely many more—already knows how to prep its chicks for a warming world. They do so by emitting special calls to the embryos inside their eggs, which can hear and learn external sounds. This is the first time scientists have found animals using sound to affect the growth, development, behavior, and reproductive success of their offspring, and adds to a growing body of research revealing that birds can “doctor” their eggs.'

'The idea that the zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) parents were “talking to their eggs” occurred to Mylene Mariette, a behavioral ecologist at Deakin University in Waurn Ponds, Australia, while recording the birds’ sounds at an outdoor aviary. She noticed that sometimes when a parent was alone, it would make a rapid, high-pitched series of calls while sitting on the eggs. Mariette and her co-author, Katherine Buchanan, recorded the incubation calls of 61 female and 61 male finches inside the aviary. They found that parents of both sexes uttered these calls only during the end of the incubation period and when the maximum daily temperature rose above 26°C (78.8°F).'

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/video-zebra-finch-call-prepares-their-eggs-climate-change

A few things to note-

According to wiki - "The zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata [formerly Poephila guttata]),[2] is the most common estrildid finch of Central Australia and ranges over most of the continent, avoiding only the cool moist south and some areas of the tropical far north.'

Waurn Ponds is located in Geelong, which is either at the lower end of of its habitat range or below it, as the birds are in an aviary.

The Centralian maximum temperatures often exceed 40ºC.

OK so some animals can cope.

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Aug 26^th, 2016 at 12:38pm:

OK so some animals can cope.

Which animals can't? Humans withstand more than that by moving from hot to cold and vice versa.

And the scientists were claiming that the finches were warning of climate change. How did they deduce that? or were the finches talking about the next race meeting at Geelong?

Prime Minister for Canyons wrote on Aug 26^th, 2016 at 12:38pm:

OK so some animals can cope.

Yes but the Zebra Finch is cherry picking at its most blatant.
The Zebra finch can fly, which makes it easy for it to seek a better habitat. It is also already adapted to hot arid regions so global warming will obviously have little effect in this particular species.

The story is different for animals and plants in alpine or polar areas. They are a lot more restricted on where they can move to.

Additionally all land based animals are restricted on where they can move to due to human destruction of their habitats.

Plants can't move at all. They rely on any changes being slow enough for their seeds to be dispersed to more favorable habitats. Once again human land clearing restricts where they can move to.

Even humans are restricted. We have lots of coastal infrastructure that can't simply be moved on a whim. Our crops and agriculture are also restricted in where they can be moved to.

To imply that the ecosystem will be fine simply because the Zebra Finch will be able to adapt to global warming is naive at best or at worst is ignorant and foolish.

The_Barnacle wrote on Aug 27^th, 2016 at 6:15pm:

Yes but the Zebra Finch is cherry picking at its most blatant.

Yes. Fancy scientists cherry picking like that. Thoroughly reprehensible. ;)