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If internal and international migrants comprised a nation, it would be the third most populous country in the world, just after China and India. Thus, there can be little doubt that population mobility is among the leading policy issues of the 21st century. However, policies to protect migrants and global health have so far been hampered by inadequate policy attention and poor international coordination. This is the conclusion of a new article in PLoS Medicine arguing that current policy-making on migration and health has been conducted within sector silos, which frequently have different goals. Yet, population mobility is wholly compatible with health-promoting strategies for migrants if decision-makers coordinate across borders and policy sectors, say the authors, who are also serving as guest editors of a new series in PLoS Medicine on migration & health that launches this week.

Bird migration timing across North America has been affected by climate change, according to a study published Feb. 22 in the open access journal PLoS ONE.

Instinct and the annual increase of daylight hours have long been thought to be the triggers for birds to begin their spring migration. Scientists at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, however, have found that that may not be the case. Researchers have focused on how warming trends in temperate breeding areas disrupt the sensitive ecology of migratory birds. This new research shows that changes in rainfall on the tropical wintering grounds could be equally disruptive. The team's findings are published in scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, today, March 30.

"Dendrochronologists have shown that tree-ring data produce a remarkably accurate history of droughts and other climate changes. Combined with reliable drought indices and historical descriptions of climate conditions, dendrochronology - the technique of dating events and environmental change by relying on characteristic patterns of tree-ring growth - can provide a climate perspective on important events such as large-scale human migration and even the rise and fall of entire civilizations."

Sex or nice weather. That's the agonizing choice some birds face, according to a new University of Guelph study.

Tropical birds are moving to higher elevations because of climate change, but they may not be moving fast enough, according to a new study by Duke University researchers.

Scientists have observed a "super-aggregation" of more than 300 humpback whales gorging on the largest swarm of Antarctic krill seen in more than 20 years in bays along the Western Antarctic Peninsula.