0000000000072733
AUTHOR
Nicole Lemoine
Species richness of migratory birds is influenced by global climate change
Aim Global climate change is increasingly influencing ecosystems. Long-term effects on the species richness and composition of ecological communities have been predicted using modelling approaches but, so far, hardly demonstrated in the field. Here, we test whether changes in the composition of bird communities have been influenced by recent climate change. Location Europe. Methods We focus on the proportion of migratory and resident bird species because these groups are expected to respond differently to climatic change. We used the spatial relationship between climatic factors and bird communities in Europe to predict changes in 21 European bird communities under recent climate change.…
Importance of Climate Change for the Ranges, Communities and Conservation of Birds
Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on the effects of global climate change on the size and position of geographic ranges and the richness and composition of bird communities. Plenty of evidence demonstrates that range boundaries of birds are correlated with climatic factors. In general, the northern range limit of species seems to be influenced rather by abiotic factors such as cold temperatures. The southern range limit of species appears to be determined by climatic factors such as heat or lack of water in arid regions and by biotic factors in more humid regions. For communities, increases in species richness are predicted for northern latitude and high-elevation sites and declines of…
Effects of climate and land-use change on species abundance in a Central European bird community.
Although it is known that changes in land use and climate have an impact on ecological communities, it is unclear which of these factors is currently most important. We sought to determine the influence of land-use and climate alteration on changes in the abundance of Central European birds. We examined the impact of these factors by contrasting abundance changes of birds of different breeding habitat, latitudinal distribution, and migratory behavior. We examined data from the semiquantitative Breeding Bird Atlas of Lake Constance, which borders Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. Changes in the regional abundance of the 159 coexisting bird species from 1980-1981 to 2000-2002 were influenced…
Potential Impact of Global Climate Change on Species Richness of Long-Distance Migrants
Little evidence exists demonstrating that global climate change leads to systematic changes in the struc- ture of ecological communities. For avian communities, one would expect warmer winters to lead to declines in numbers of long-distance migrants if resident birds benefit from warmer winters and impose increasing competi- tive pressure on migrants. To study the potential influence of global climate change on long-distance migrants, we correlated the number of all species of land birds and the number and proportion of long-distance migrants, short- distance migrants, and residents in 595 grid cells across Europe. We used mean temperature of the coldest month, mean spring temperature, and …