Climate-driven changes in winter abundance of a migratory waterbird in relation to EU protected areas

AimSpecies are responding to climate change by changing their distributions, creating debate about the effectiveness of existing networks of protected areas. As a contribution to this debate, we assess whether regional winter abundances and distribution of the Smew Mergellus albellus, a migratory waterbird species listed on Annex I (EU Birds Directive) that overwinters exclusively in European wetlands, changed during 1990-2011, the role of global warming in driving distributional changes and the effectiveness of the network of Special Protection Areas (SPAs, EU Birds Directive) in the context of climate change. LocationEurope. MethodsWe used site-specific counts (6,883 sites) from 16 countr…

Changes in the Breeding Bird Fauna, Waterbird Populations in Particular, on Lake Engure (Latvia) over the Last 50 Years

The nesting bird fauna (186 species) of Lake Engure and its surroundings has changed considerably over the last 50 years: 18 species have appeared as newcomers (among them 56% of southern, 6% of northern origin), 10 species have ceased nesting (among them 60% of northern, 10% of southern origin). These changes might be explained by global warming. Dramatic changes recorded in all waders can be accounted for by the local habitat loss and a general decline in wider geographic ranges. The Black-headed Gull (Larus ridibundus) population increased from 200 pairs in 1940s to 34,000 pairs in 1986, and then declined to 4,200 pairs in 2002. Nesting duck (all species combined) numbers and their nesti…

Correction to: Positive impacts of important bird and biodiversity areas on wintering waterbirds under changing temperatures throughout Europe and North Africa (Biol. Conserv. 246 (2020) 108549)

Bycatch in gillnet fisheries - An overlooked threat to waterbird populations

Bird mortality in fishing gear is a global conservation issue and it is recognised that bycatch in industrial longline and trawl fisheries threatens several seabird species. Little is known however about the effects of bycatch in small-scale gillnet fisheries on bird populations. Here we review 30 studies reporting bird bycatch in coastal gillnet fisheries in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea region in order to assess the magnitude of this problem and potential effects on bird populations. All species of diving birds that occur in the study region, including divers (loons), grebes, sea ducks, diving ducks, auks and cormorants, have been reported as dying in fishing nets. The cumulative bycat…

Positive impacts of important bird and biodiversity areas on wintering waterbirds under changing temperatures throughout Europe and North Africa

Clausen, Preben/0000-0001-8986-294X WOS: 000536149100018 Migratory waterbirds require an effectively conserved cohesive network of wetland areas throughout their range and life-cycle. Under rapid climate change, protected area (PA) networks need to be able to accommodate climate-driven range shifts in wildlife if they are to continue to be effective in the future. Thus, we investigated geographical variation in the relationship between local temperature anomaly and the abundance of 61 waterbird species during the wintering season across Europe and North Africa during 1990-2015. We also compared the spatio-temporal effects on abundance of sites designated as PAs, Important Bird and Biodivers…

Habitat- and species-mediated short- and long-term distributional changes in waterbird abundance linked to variation in European winter weather

Aim: Many species are showing distribution shifts in response to environmental change. We explored (a) the effects of inter-annual variation in winter weather conditions on non-breeding distributional abundance of waterbirds exploiting different habitats (deep-water, shallow water, farmland) and (b) the long-term shift in the population centroid of these species and investigate its link to changes in weather conditions. Location: Europe. Methods: We fitted generalized additive mixed Models to a large-scale, 24-year dataset (1990–2013) describing the winter distributional abundance of 25 waterbird species. We calculated the annual and long-term (3-year periods) population centroid of each sp…