Pulido and Berthold 2004

Pulido F, Berthold P. 2004. Microevolutionary response to climatic change. Advances in Ecological Research 35: 151-183.

These authors summarize and examine the available empirical evidence for adaptive responses to climate change in birds. Birds are a well studied group in this context, for a variety of reasons. Previous reviews had focused on theoretical considerations, and the likelyhood and rates of adaptive evolution in response to climate change, primarily because of a general paucity of empirical data on the subject.

A few examples of phenotypic change in bird populations have been found associated with either climate change (e.g. shift in breeding dates) or with rare extreme weather events. The authors caution that a response to selection cannot be inferred simply from a phenotypic change, as more variables must be measured and / or controlled for, particularly regarding the possibility of change driven by phenotypic plasticity. At the other extreme, some studies have suggested a change driven solely by plasticity but did not provide sufficient evidence to justify that claim.In general, short-term adaptive responses may or may not be indicative of longer-term trends, as phenotypic change can occur over multiple ecological and evolutionary time scales. Some instances of very rapid adaptation are unlikely to represent long-term trends, as they are responses to inherently limited environmental changes or to temporary conditions of population genetics.