Climate change causes rapid changes in the distribution and site abundance of birds in winter

Abstract

Detecting coherent signals of climate change is best achieved by conducting expansive, long-term studies. Here, using counts of waders (Charadrii) collected from ca. 3500 sites over 30 years and covering a major portion of western Europe, we present the largestscale study to show that faunal abundance is influenced by climate in winter. We demonstrate that the 'weighted centroids' of populations of seven species of wader occurring in internationally important numbers have undergone substantial shifts of up to 115 km, generally in a northeasterly direction. To our knowledge, this shift is greater than that recorded in any other study, but closer to what would be expected as a result of the spatial distribution of ecological zones. We establish that year-to-year changes in site abundance have been positively correlated with concurrent changes in temperature, but that this relationship is most marked towards the colder extremities of the birds' range, suggesting that shifts have occurred as a result of range expansion and that responses to climate change are temperature dependent. Many attempts to model the future impacts of climate change on the distribution of organisms, assume uniform responses or shifts throughout a species' range or with temperature, but our results suggest that this may not be a valid approach. We propose that, with warming temperatures, hitherto unsuitable sites in northeastern Europe will host increasingly important wader numbers, but that this may not be matched by declines elsewhere within the study area. The need to establish that such changes are occurring is accentuated by the statutory importance of this taxon in the designation of protected areas.

Residence Probability and Population Size of Red Knots During Spring Stopover in the Mid‐Atlantic Region of the United States

“…Warming has been particularly pronounced in northern Alaska (Martin et al 2009). Climate change could affect shorebird habitats on the northern coast of Alaska in many ways, including trophic mismatch with invertebrate food sources (Visser and Both 2005;Tulp and Schekkerman 2008;Van Der Jeugd et al 2009), habitat loss or shifts (Maclean et al 2008), and extreme weather events or changes in inland hydrology or sea level (ACIA 2005;Martin et al 2009). Determining the relative abundance of birds at coastal sites will help support conservation efforts to mitigate these impacts.…”

Wet Grasslands as a Green Infrastructure for Ecological Sustainability: Wader Conservation in Southern Sweden as a Case Study

“…Additional factors were drainage, fertilization as well as effects of mammalian predators and birds of prey. Long-term studies on the influence of climate on the abundance of wintering waders show substantial shifts of up to 115 km, generally in a north-easterly direction [121].…”

Protected areas act as establishment centres for species colonizing the UK

“…They are especially suitable for study because of the intensive scrutiny they receive from ornithologists, as well as from formal surveys [16,17]. The breeding distributions of many birds have shifted polewards in recent decades [18][19][20][21] and are projected to continue to do so [22]. In the UK, this phenomenon has already been linked with the recent arrival of Cetti's warblers Cettia cetti [23] and little egrets Egretta garzetta [24], two of our focal species.…”