There is now ample evidence of the ecological impacts of recent climate change, from polar terrestrial to tropical marine environments. The responses of both flora and fauna span an array of ecosystems and organizational hierarchies, from the species to the community levels. Despite continued uncertainty as to community and ecosystem trajectories under global change, our review exposes a coherent pattern of ecological change across systems. Although we are only at an early stage in the projected trends of global warming, ecological responses to recent climate change are already clearly visible.

There is compelling evidence that Afro-Palaearctic (A-P) migrant bird populations have declined in Europe in recent decades, often to a greater degree than resident or shortdistance migrants. There appear to have been two phases of decline. The first in the 1960s-1970s, and in some cases into the early 1980s, largely affected species wintering predominantly in the arid Sahelian zone, and the second since the 1980s has mostly affected species wintering in the humid tropics and Guinea forest zone. Potential drivers of these declines are diverse and are spread across and interact within the migratory cycle. Our knowledge of declining species is generally better for the breeding than the non-breeding parts of their life cycles, but there are significant gaps in both for many species. On the breeding grounds, degradation of breeding habitats is the factor affecting the demography of the largest number of species, particularly within agricultural systems and woodland and forests. In the non-breeding areas, the interacting factors of anthropogenic habitat degradation and climatic conditions, particularly drought in the Sahel zone, appear to be the most important factors. Based on our synthesis of existing information, we suggest four priorities for further research: (1) use of new and emerging tracking technologies to identify migratory pathways and strategies, understand migratory connectivity and enable field research to be targeted more effectively; (2) undertake detailed field studies in sub-Saharan Africa and at staging sites, where we understand little about distribution patterns, habitat use and foraging ecology; (3) make better use of the wealth of data from the European breeding grounds to explore spatial and temporal patterns in demographic parameters and relate these to migratory pathways and large-scale patterns of habitat change and climatic factors; and (4) make better use of remote sensing to improve our understanding of how and where land cover is changing across these extensive areas and how this impacts A-P migrants. This research needs to inform and underpin a flyway approach to conservation, evaluating a suite of drivers across the migratory cycle and combining this with an understanding of land management practices that integrate the needs of birds and people in these areas.

Information about when and where animals die is important to understand population regulation. In migratory animals, mortality might occur not only during the stationary periods (e.g. breeding and wintering) but also during the migration seasons. However, the relative importance of population limiting factors during different periods of the year remains poorly understood, and previous studies mainly relied on indirect evidence. Here, we provide direct evidence about when and where migrants die by identifying cases of confirmed and probable deaths in three species of long-distance migratory raptors tracked by satellite telemetry. We show that mortality rate was about six times higher during migration seasons than during stationary periods. However, total mortality was surprisingly similar between periods, which can be explained by the fact that risky migration periods are shorter than safer stationary periods. Nevertheless, more than half of the annual mortality occurred during migration. We also found spatiotemporal patterns in mortality: spring mortality occurred mainly in Africa in association with the crossing of the Sahara desert, while most mortality during autumn took place in Europe. Our results strongly suggest that events during the migration seasons have an important impact on the population dynamics of long-distance migrants. We speculate that mortality during spring migration may account for short-term annual variation in survival and population sizes, while mortality during autumn migration may be more important for long-term population regulation (through density-dependent effects).

Long-distance migrations are among the wonders of the natural world, but this multitaxon review shows that the characteristics of species that undertake such movements appear to make them particularly vulnerable to detrimental impacts of climate change. Migrants are key components of biological systems in high latitude regions, where the speed and magnitude of climate change impacts are greatest. They also rely on highly productive seasonal habitats, including wetlands and ocean upwellings that, with climate change, may become less food-rich and predictable in space and time. While migrants are adapted to adjust their behaviour with annual changes in the weather, the decoupling of climatic variables between geographically separate breeding and nonbreeding grounds is beginning to result in mistimed migration. Furthermore, human land-use and activity patterns will constrain the ability of many species to modify their migratory routes and may increase the stress induced by climate change. Adapting conservation strategies for migrants in the light of climate change will require substantial shifts in site designation policies, flexibility of management strategies and the integration of forward planning for both people and wildlife. While adaptation to changes may be feasible for some terrestrial systems, wildlife in the marine ecosystem may be more dependent on the degree of climate change mitigation that is achievable.

The northern wheatear ( Oenanthe oenanthe ) is a small (approx. 25 g), insectivorous migrant with one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the world, breeding from the eastern Canadian Arctic across Greenland, Eurasia and into Alaska (AK). However, there is no evidence that breeding populations in the New World have established overwintering sites in the Western Hemisphere. Using light-level geolocators, we demonstrate that individuals from these New World regions overwinter in northern sub-Sahara Africa, with Alaskan birds travelling approximately 14 500 km each way and an eastern Canadian Arctic bird crossing a wide stretch of the North Atlantic (approx. 3500 km). These remarkable journeys, particularly for a bird of this size, last between one to three months depending on breeding location and season (autumn/spring) and result in mean overall migration speeds of up to 290 km d −1 . Stable-hydrogen isotope analysis of winter-grown feathers sampled from breeding birds generally support the notion that Alaskan birds overwinter primarily in eastern Africa and eastern Canadian Arctic birds overwinter mainly in western Africa. Our results provide the first evidence of a migratory songbird capable of linking African ecosystems of the Old World with Arctic regions of the New World.

This paper reports on the total distribution of spring migration timing of willow warbler, chiffchaff and pied flycatcher at locations in the UK, Germany, Russia and Finland. This is the first time that high-quality data based on known-effort monitoring has been examined on a continental scale. First arrival dates, commonly reported in the literature, were positively correlated with mean arrival dates although they would not make good predictors of the latter. At all locations, at least one aspect of the arrival distribution of each species had got significantly earlier in recent years. The trend towards earliness was associated with warmer local temperatures and more positive winter North Atlantic Oscillation index. In years that were early, the arrival distribution became more elongated and skewed. Researchers should now investigate the consequences of earlier arrival on current and future bird populations.

Birds usually migrate by alternating flight bouts and stopovers for refueling. The decision when to leave a stopover place is of paramount importance for the success of migration. Despite its importance, little is known about which factors influence the departure decision. Using capture-recapture data of passerines from 3 stopover sites, we investigate by capture-recapture models whether this decision is dependent on actual fuel stores and fuel deposition rates. Individuals that accumulated fuel stores at medium rates departed later than individuals that either lost fuel stores during their stopover or able to increase their fuel stores quickly. This pattern was consistent among all sites. The departure decision was not dependent on actual fuel stores at 2 stopover sites. At the site facing an ecological barrier, emigration probability increased with increasing fuel stores, indicating that birds wait until they reach a threshold of fuel stores before departing. There was a positive correlation between departure fuel load and fuel deposition rate at all sites, which is in accordance with the time-minimizing hypothesis. These results suggest that the decision to depart from a stopover site is based on rather simple behavioral rules: birds that lose fuel stores or that increase fuel stores at a high rate would leave a site quickly, whereas birds increasing fuel stores at intermediate rates would stay for a longer time. The departure decision is shaped also by the position of the stopover site in relation to the next one and may be affected further by environmental factors.

There is currently a great deal of interest in using stable-isotope methods to investigate diet and migratory connections in wild passerines. To apply these methods successfully, it is important to understand how stable isotopes discriminate or change between diet and the tissue of interest and what the element-turnover rates are in metabolically active tissues. Of particular use are studies that sample birds non-destructively through the use of blood and feathers. We investigated patterns of isotopic discrimination between diet and blood and feathers of Garden Warblers (Sylvia borin) raised on an isotopically homogeneous diet (48% C, 5% N) and then switched to one of two experimental diets, mealworms (56.8% C, 8.3% N) and elderberries, Sambucus niger (47.4% C, 1.5% N). We established that the discrimination factors between diet and blood appropriate for stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotopes are +1.7‰ and +2.4‰, respectively. For feathers, these values were +2.7‰ and +4‰, respectively. Turnover of elemental nitrogen in whole blood was best approximated by an exponential-decay model with a half-life of 11.0 ± 0.8 days (mean ± SD). Corresponding turnover of carbon was estimated to range from 5.0 ± 0.7 to 5.7 ± 0.8 days. We conclude that this decoupling of nitrogen- and carbon-turnover rates can be explained by differences in metabolic routing of dietary macromolecules. Our results suggest that tracking frugivory in migratory passerines that switch diets between insects and fruits may be complicated if only a trophic-level estimate is made using δ15N measurements.