Effects of Large-scale Climate on Avian Population Dynamics Across Species' North American Breeding Distributions PDF Download

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Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Dieter Thomas Tietze
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319916890
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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The average person can name more bird species than they think, but do we really know what a bird “species” is? This open access book takes up several fascinating aspects of bird life to elucidate this basic concept in biology. From genetic and physiological basics to the phenomena of bird song and bird migration, it analyzes various interactions of birds – with their environment and other birds. Lastly, it shows imminent threats to birds in the Anthropocene, the era of global human impact. Although it seemed to be easy to define bird species, the advent of modern methods has challenged species definition and led to a multidisciplinary approach to classifying birds. One outstanding new toolbox comes with the more and more reasonably priced acquisition of whole-genome sequences that allow causative analyses of how bird species diversify. Speciation has reached a final stage when daughter species are reproductively isolated, but this stage is not easily detectable from the phenotype we observe. Culturally transmitted traits such as bird song seem to speed up speciation processes, while another behavioral trait, migration, helps birds to find food resources, and also coincides with higher chances of reaching new, inhabitable areas. In general, distribution is a major key to understanding speciation in birds. Examples of ecological speciation can be found in birds, and the constant interaction of birds with their biotic environment also contributes to evolutionary changes. In the Anthropocene, birds are confronted with rapid changes that are highly threatening for some species. Climate change forces birds to move their ranges, but may also disrupt well-established interactions between climate, vegetation, and food sources. This book brings together various disciplines involved in observing bird species come into existence, modify, and vanish. It is a rich resource for bird enthusiasts who want to understand various processes at the cutting edge of current research in more detail. At the same time it offers students the opportunity to see primarily unconnected, but booming big-data approaches such as genomics and biogeography meet in a topic of broad interest. Lastly, the book enables conservationists to better understand the uncertainties surrounding “species” as entities of protection.

Author: Anders Pape Møller
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199569746
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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"Effects of Climate Change on Birds provides an exhaustive and up-to-date synthesis of the science of climate change as it relates to birds." -- Back cover.

Author: Hanna Marie McCaslin
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : American kestrel
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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"Dispersal is a critical process influencing population dynamics, and patterns of dispersal movement impact species distribution and abundance and have important evolutionary and ecological consequences. In particular, long-distance dispersal (LDD) can be especially important for gene flow and adaptability, although little is known about the mechanisms of LDD because of the challenges of studying large-scale animal movement. Global change is driving selection for new movement patterns in animals by stressing physiological tolerances and affecting the dynamics of biotic interactions. This is resulting in shifts in species distributions that are widespread across taxa. The distributions of migratory bird species are shifting heterogeneously, and multidirectional shifts are inconsistent with unidirectional climate niche tracking hypotheses. We studied correlates of natal LDD using bird banding data for American kestrels (Falco sparverius) in the United States and Canada from 1960-2015. We used Bayesian hierarchical models to investigate temporal trends and the effects of sex, migration strategy, weather, and landcover on LDD frequency and distance and understand potential sampling bias. We also studied the directions and correlates of shifts in breeding distributions for 73 avian species and subspecies from 1994-2017 using the North American Breeding Bird Survey. We modeled regional changes over time in breeding abundance centroid and investigated the effects of abundance trends and migratory, habitat, and dietary traits on these shifts."--Boise State University ScholarWorks.

Author:
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080471927
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Temperature and other climate variables are currently changing at a dramatic rate. As observations have shown, these climatic changes have serious consequences for all organisms and their ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions. Birds are excellent model organisms, with a very active metabolism, they are highly sensitive to environmental changes and as highly mobile creatures they are also extremely reactive. Birds and Climate Change discusses our current knowledge of observed changes and provides guidelines for studies in the years to come so we can document and understand how patterns of changing weather conditions may affect birds. Provides reviews of long-term datasets Incorporates meta-analyses of studies about climate change effects on birds Includes guidelines and suggestions for further studies

Author: Sarah Jean Kiuama Frey
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Bird communities
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Population trends and patterns in species distributions are the major currencies used to examine responses by biodiversity to changing environments. Effective conservation recommendations require that models of both distribution dynamics and population trends accurately reflect reality. However, identification of the appropriate temporal and spatial scales of animal response, and then obtaining data at these scales present two major challenges to developing predictive models. In heterogeneous forested mountain landscapes I examined: A) the relative drivers of climatic variability at fine spatial scales under the forest canopy ('microclimate'), B) the influence of microclimate on local-scale occupancy dynamics of bird communities, and C) the effects of spatial scale and imperfect bird detection on long-term avian population trends. Climate change has been predicted to cause widespread biodiversity declines. However, the capacity of climate envelope models for predicting the future of biodiversity has been questioned due to the mismatch between the scale of available data (i.e., global climate models) and the scales at which organisms experience their environment. Local-scale variation in microclimate is hypothesized to provide potential 'microrefugia' for biodiversity, but the relative role of elevation, microtopography, and vegetation structure in driving microclimate is not well known. If the microrefugia hypothesis is true, I expected to see areas on the landscape that remained relatively cooler (i.e., buffered sites). To test this, I collected temperature data at 183 sites across elevation and forest structure gradients in complex terrain of the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon, USA (Chapter 2). I used boosted regression trees, a novel machine learning approach, to determine the relative influence of vegetation structure, microtopography, and elevation as drivers of microclimate and mapped fine-scale distributions of temperature across the landscape. Models performed extremely well on independent data - cross-validation correlations between testing and training data were 0.69 - 0.98 for ten selected climate variables. Elevation was the dominant driver in fine-scale microclimate patterns, although vegetation and microtopography also showed substantial relative influences. For instance, during the spring-summer transition, maximum monthly temperatures observed in old-growth sites were 2.6°C (95% CI: 1.8 - 3.3°C) cooler than plantation sites and minimum temperatures during winter months were 0.6°C (95% CI: 0.4 - 0.8°C) warmer. This suggests that older forest stands mediate changes in temperature by buffering against warming during summer months and moderating cold temperatures during the winter. Climate is generally considered most influential on species distributions at large spatial scales; however much microclimate variability exists within regional patterns. I tested whether this high degree of microclimate variability has relevance for predicting species distributions and occupancy dynamics of the Andrews Forest bird community. I collected bird occurrence data in 2012 and 2013 at all 183 sites with fine-scale temperature measurements. I used dynamic occupancy models to test the effects of temperature on occupancy and apparent within-season bird movement while statistically accounting for vegetation effects and imperfect bird detection (Chapter 3). Most species (87%) exhibited within-season shifts in response to local-scale temperature metrics. Effects of temperature on within-season occupancy dynamics were as large or larger (1 to 1.7 times) than vegetation. However, individual species were almost as likely to shift toward warmer sites as toward cooler sites, suggesting that microclimate preferences are species-specific. My results emphasize that high-resolution temperature data provide valuable insight into avian distribution dynamics in montane forest environments and that microclimate is an important variable in breeding season habitat selection by forest birds. I hypothesize that microclimate-associated distribution shifts may reflect species' potential for behavioral buffering from climate change in complex terrain. Factors influencing population trends often differ depending on the spatial scale under consideration. Further, accurate estimation of trends requires accounting for biases caused by imperfect detection. To test the degree to which population trends are consistent across scales, I estimated landscape-scale bird population trends from 1999-2012 for 38 species at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest (HBEF) in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, USA and compared them to regional and local trends (Chapter 4). I used a new method - open-population binomial mixture models - to test the hypothesis that imperfect detection in bird sampling has the potential to bias trend estimates. I also tested for generalities in species responses by predicting population trends as a function of life history and ecological traits. Landscape-scale trends were correlated with regional and local trends, but generally these correlations were weak (r = 0.12 - 0.4). Further, more species were declining at the regional scale compared to within the relatively undisturbed HBEF. Life history and ecological traits did not explain any of the variability in the HBEF trends. However, at the regional scale, species that occurred at higher elevations were more likely to be declining and species associated with older forests have increased. I hypothesize that these differences could be attributed to both elevated rates of land-use change in the broader region and the fact that the structure of regional data did not permit modeling of imperfect detection. Indeed, accounting for imperfect detection resulted in more accurate population trend estimates at the landscape scale; without accounting for detection we would have both missed trends and falsely identified trends where none existed. These results highlight two important cautions for trend analysis: 1) population trends estimated at fine spatial scales may not be extrapolated to broader scales and 2) accurate trends require accounting for imperfect detection.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Dissertations, Academic
Languages : en
Pages : 840

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Author: Lori Jean Hargrove
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781109711356
Category : Birds
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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All species are limited to a particular geographic area, whether of great or small extent, by historical contingency and interactions between extrinsic biotic or abiotic environmental factors, and intrinsic dispersive and adaptive traits. Distribution margins often occur on ecological gradients, along which the species' range may expand or contract over time. If the distribution of a species is reflective of its adaptive niche, then marginal areas will act as population "sinks" with reduced habitat quality. However, if environmental conditions change at distribution margins so that they are no longer limiting, fitness should improve and result in a range expansion. The general objective of this dissertation research was to elucidate the nature of distribution limits by studying their causes and consequences in marginal populations. Distribution limits of breeding birds were investigated along an arid shrubland gradient in southern California undergoing rapid climate warming. Through the use of multi-scale surveys and historical data, the comparative structure and dynamics of marginal distributions among avian species were related to environmental factors. Elevational distributions were remarkably consistent across three years (2005-2007) and three elevational transects (200-1800 m), with strongly individualistic environmental associations among species. However, over a 26-year period, five species (out of 28 tested) showed statistically significant distribution shifts, all upward in elevation. The average elevational shift for all 28 species was an increase of 116 m, and low-elevation desert species were most likely to show upward shifts. Among species, individual productivity tended to increase with elevation, regardless of whether the species' lower or upper distribution limit occurred along the study gradient. For a focal species, the Black-throated Sparrow (Amphispiza bilineata), breeding success tended to be greater at higher-elevation chaparral sites at the distribution margin compared to lower-elevation desert scrub sites where the bird was more common, but this species did not show an upward elevational shift over a 26-year period. Desert species may be most likely to be at or near their temperature and aridity tolerance limits within their current range, and range shifts can be delayed or prevented by decoupled environmental factors.

Author: Eric M. Wood
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1482240319
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Bird migration is a well-researched phenological event. However, few studies in North America have investigated the effects of climate change and extreme weather on the relationships of migratory avian species and their seasonal resources. This is a critical gap in knowledge that limits our ability to prioritize management and conservation applicat

Author: Diana Stralberg
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Forest ecology
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Often referred to as North America's bird nursery, the boreal forest biome provides a productive environment for breeding birds, supporting high species diversity and bird numbers. These birds are likely to shift their distributions northward in response to rapid climate change over the next century, resulting in population- and community-level changes. To anticipate the pattern and extent of such changes, and to inform climate-change adaptation and conservation planning, species distribution models (SDMs) are often used to describe and map species' climatic niches through time. SDMs provide invaluable insights into climatic suitability patterns and potential distributional responses, but they are most useful when assumptions are acknowledged and the resulting limitations are addressed. Each chapter of my thesis focuses on understanding and addressing one of four major limitations of SDMs: (1) model uncertainty in current and future projections, (2) time lags in ecosystem responses to climate change, (3) the static nature of correlative models, and (4) the influence of historical biogeography in determining current distributions. In my first chapter, using a continental-scale avian dataset compiled by the Boreal Avian Modelling project, I developed models to project climate-induced changes in the distribution and relative abundance of 80 boreal-breeding passerine species. For such projections to be useful, however, the magnitude of change must be understood relative to the magnitude of uncertainty in model predictions. I found that the mean signal-to-noise ratio across species increased over time to 2.87 by the end of the 21st century, with the signal greater than the noise for 88% of species. I also found that, among sources of uncertainty evaluated, the choice of climate model was most important for 66% of species, sampling error for 29% of species, and variable selection for 5% of species. The range of uncertainty exhibited across species and geographic regions suggests a basis for differential quantitative weightings in assessments of species vulnerability and spatial conservation priorities under climate change. Many species and ecosystems will likely be unable to keep pace with rapid climate change projected for the 21st century, however. In my second chapter, I evaluated an underexplored dimension of the mismatch between climate and biota: limitations to forest growth and succession affecting habitat suitability. I found dramatic reductions in suitable habitat for many species over the next century when vegetation lags were considered. I used these results to identify conservative and efficient boreal conservation priorities anchored around climatic macrorefugia that are robust to century-long climate change and complement the current protected areas network. Vegetation change may also be delayed in the absence of disturbance catalysts. In the western boreal region, a combined increase in wildfires and human activities may aid these transitions, also resulting in a younger forest. In my third chapter, I developed a hybrid modelling approach based on topo-edaphically constrained projections of climate-driven vegetation change potential, coupled with weather- and fuel-based simulations of future wildfires, and projections of large-scale industrial development activities, to better understand factors influencing decadal-scale upland vegetation change. I simulated scenarios of change in forest composition and structure over the next century, conservatively concluding that at least one-third of Alberta's upland mixedwood and conifer forest is likely to be replaced by deciduous woodland and grassland by 2090. During this timeframe, the rate of increase in fire probability diminished, suggesting a negative feedback process by which a warmer climate and more extensive near-term fires leads to an increase in deciduous forest that in turn, due to its relatively low flammability, leads to a long-term reduction in area burned. Finally, boreal species' projected range shifts could be impeded by the northwestern cordillera, which spans from boreal Alaska to the rest of the North American boreal region, and may have inhibited the expansion of many species into climatically suitable habitat after the last glacial maximum (LGM). Using paleoclimate simulations for the past 20,000 years, I analyzed the relative importance of migratory and life-history characteristics vs. current and historical climatic suitability on the distributions of North American boreal-breeding species. The high relative importance of climatic suitability within the northwestern cordilleran region suggests a capacity for several species to disperse into Alaska once climatic connectivity is achieved in the future, which is supported by recently recorded signs of breeding activity.