The Sichuan jay (''Perisoreus internigrans'') is a species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a fou ...

in the family

Corvidae Corvidae is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan Family (biology), family of Songbird, oscine passerine birds that contains the crows, ravens, Rook (bird), rooks, magpies, jackdaws, jays, treepies, choughs, and Nutcracker (bird), nutcrackers ...

. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Taxonomy

It is one of three members of the genus '' Perisoreus'', the others being the Siberian jay, ''P. infaustus'', found from Norway to eastern Russia, and the Canada jay, ''P. canadensis'', restricted to the

boreal forest Taiga or tayga ( ; , ), also known as boreal forest or snow forest, is a biome characterized by pinophyta, coniferous forests consisting mostly of pines, spruces, and larches. The taiga, or boreal forest, is the world's largest land biome. I ...

and western montane regions of

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. All three species store food and live year-round on permanent territories in coniferous forests.

Distribution and habitat

Its natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

is subtropical or tropical moist

montane forest Montane ecosystems are found on the slopes of mountains. The alpine climate in these regions strongly affects the ecosystem because temperatures lapse rate, fall as elevation increases, causing the ecosystem to stratify. This stratification is ...

s. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

Conservation

They are mostly situated in isolated fragments of highly elevated coniferous forests on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau of west-central China. These locations are generally isolated, because of the mountainous terrain of the

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

. However, it is predicted that both of the extent of suitable habitat and the suitability of that habitat will decrease substantially under

climate change Present-day climate change includes both global warming—the ongoing increase in Global surface temperature, global average temperature—and its wider effects on Earth's climate system. Climate variability and change, Climate change in ...

. Climate change might force these birds to migrate northward and upward, where areas remaining for such compensatory extension are quite restricted. In addition, acceptable habitat will become much more disconnected, which may increase the negative effects of climate change indirectly by slowing, or halting

gene flow In population genetics, gene flow (also known as migration and allele flow) is the transfer of genetic variation, genetic material from one population to another. If the rate of gene flow is high enough, then two populations will have equivalent ...

and accelerating the rate of

extinction Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

of fragmented local populations.

References

External links

BirdLife Species Factsheet.
Sichuan jay Birds of Central China Endemic birds of China Sichuan jay Sichuan jay Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Corvidae-stub