Population responses of bird populations to climate change on two continents vary with species’ ecological traits but not with direction of change in climate suitability

Lucy R. Mason, Rhys E. Green, Christine Howard, Philip A. Stephens, Stephen G. Willis, Ainars Aunins, Lluís Brotons, Tomasz Chodkiewicz, Przemysław Chylarecki, Virginia Escandell, Ruud P. B. Foppen, Sergi Herrando, Magne Husby, Frédéric Jiguet, John Atle Kålås, Åke Lindström, Dario Massimino, Charlotte Moshøj, Renno Nellis, Jean-Yves Paquet, Jiří Reif, Päivi M. Sirkiä, Tibor Szép, Guido Tellini Florenzano, Norbert Teufelbauer, Sven Trautmann, Arco Strien, Chris A. M. Turnhout, Petr Voříšek and Richard D. Gregory ()
Additional contact information
Lucy R. Mason: RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, The Lodge
Rhys E. Green: RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, The Lodge
Christine Howard: Durham University
Philip A. Stephens: Durham University
Stephen G. Willis: Durham University
Ainars Aunins: University of Latvia
Lluís Brotons: Catalan Ornithological Institute, Natural History Museum of Barcelona
Tomasz Chodkiewicz: Museum & Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Przemysław Chylarecki: Museum & Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Sciences
Virginia Escandell: Sociedad Española de Ornitología/BirdLife Melquiades Biencinto
Ruud P. B. Foppen: Sovon Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology
Sergi Herrando: Catalan Ornithological Institute, Natural History Museum of Barcelona
Magne Husby: Nord University
Frédéric Jiguet: MNHN, CRBPO, UMR7204 CESCO, Equipe Conservation et Restauration des Populations (CORPO)
John Atle Kålås: Norwegian Institute for Nature Research
Åke Lindström: Lund University
Dario Massimino: British Trust for Ornithology, The Nunnery
Charlotte Moshøj: Dansk Ornitologisk Forening (BirdLife Denmark)
Renno Nellis: Estonian Ornithological Society
Jean-Yves Paquet: Natagora, Département Études
Jiří Reif: Charles University
Päivi M. Sirkiä: University of Helsinki
Tibor Szép: University of Nyíregyháza
Guido Tellini Florenzano: Dream Italia
Norbert Teufelbauer: BirdLife Österreich
Sven Trautmann: Dachverband Deutscher Avifaunisten e.V. (Federation of German Avifaunists)
Arco Strien: Statistics Netherlands
Chris A. M. Turnhout: Sovon Dutch Centre for Field Ornithology
Petr Voříšek: Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme, Czech Society for Ornithology
Richard D. Gregory: RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, The Lodge

Climatic Change, 2019, vol. 157, issue 3, No 1, 337-354

Abstract: Abstract Climate change is a major global threat to biodiversity with widespread impacts on ecological communities. Evidence for beneficial impacts on populations is perceived to be stronger and more plentiful than that for negative impacts, but few studies have investigated this apparent disparity, or how ecological factors affect population responses to climatic change. We examined the strength of the relationship between species-specific regional population changes and climate suitability trends (CST), using 30-year datasets of population change for 525 breeding bird species in Europe and the USA. These data indicate a consistent positive relationship between population trend and CST across the two continents. Importantly, we found no evidence that this positive relationship differs between species expected to be negatively and positively impacted across the entire taxonomic group, suggesting that climate change is causing equally strong, quantifiable population increases and declines. Species’ responses to changing climatic suitability varied with ecological traits, however, particularly breeding habitat preference and body mass. Species associated with inland wetlands responded most strongly and consistently to recent climatic change. In Europe, smaller species also appeared to respond more strongly, whilst the relationship with body mass was less clear-cut for North American birds. Overall, our results identify the role of certain traits in modulating responses to climate change and emphasise the importance of long-term data on abundance for detecting large-scale species’ responses to environmental changes.

Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10584-019-02549-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:climat:v:157:y:2019:i:3:d:10.1007_s10584-019-02549-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10584

DOI: 10.1007/s10584-019-02549-9

Access Statistics for this article

Climatic Change is currently edited by M. Oppenheimer and G. Yohe

More articles in Climatic Change from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().