Cuckoo and biodiversity: Testing the correlation between species occurrence and bird species richness in Europe

Morelli, Federico; Jiguet, Frédéric; Reif, Jiří; Plexida, Sofia; Valli, Andrea Suzzi; Indykiewicz, Piotr; Šímová, Petra; Tichit, Muriel; Moretti, Marco; Tryjanowski, Piotr

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2015.06.003

Cited by 31 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 81 publications

(87 reference statements)

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“…These results confirm the hypothesis that this parasitic bird can be used to predict areas with high taxonomic diversity 11, 12 , providing new insights toward the identification of an adequate bioindicator across a wide spatial range, even using different survey methods. The study of spatial patterns of species richness is one of the most important components for designing reserves and ecological networks, as well as for predicting consequences of global change, and thus for conservation purposes 27 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

The common cuckoo is an effective indicator of high bird species richness in Asia and Europe

Morelli

Møller

Nelson

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Common cuckoo Cuculus canorus is a charismatic bird species with a dominant presence in human culture: from folklore legends to nowadays there is evidence of cuckoos being a prime candidate as a surrogate of bird diversity. Recent studies demonstrated that the cuckoo can predict hotspots of taxonomic diversity and functional diversity of bird communities in European countries. In this study, we demonstrated that the cuckoo is an excellent bioindicator at multi-spatial scale, extending cuckoo surrogacy from Europe to Asia. Even using three different survey methods (transect, square, point counts), comparing the new findings with results of our research in Europe, sites where the cuckoo is present were characterized by greater species richness, while the cuckoo was absent from sites with low species richness. The goodness of fit of models based on point counts ranged between 71 and 92%. Furthermore, the cuckoo population trend mirrors the average population trend and climate suitability of overall bird communities in Europe. The common cuckoo is therefore a suitable intercontinental bioindicator of hotspots of bird richness, even under climate change scenarios or in areas where the species co-occurs with other cuckoo species, opening a new avenue for standardized citizen science on bird biodiversity surveys worldwide.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

The common cuckoo is an effective indicator of high bird species richness in Asia and Europe

Morelli

Møller

Nelson

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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“…However, the number of studies highlighting an important role of biotic interactions at regional, continental and global scales is growing (reviewed in Wisz et al., ). The few studies revealing a signal of biotic interactions at a macro‐scale now encompasses mutualism (Afkhami, McIntyre, & Strauss, ), competition (Gotelli, Graves, & Rahbek, ; Laiolo, ), parasitism (Giannini, Chapman, Saraiva, Alves‐dos‐Santos, & Biesmeijer, ; Morelli et al., ), and predation (Aragón & Sánchez‐Fernández, ; Kosicki, Zduniak, Ostrowska, & Hromada, ). The extent to which these patterns are general is an open question.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Macro‐spatial structure of biotic interactions in the distribution of a raptor species

Aragón

Carrascal

Palomino

2018

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim While the contribution of abiotic factors to species distribution is well known, the geographic structure, if any, of biotic interactions within the species range is poorly understood. Most studies neglect biotic interactions when generating Species Distribution Models (SDMs) and projecting them, using future climatic scenarios, while others argue that biotic interactions may extend species tolerances to suboptimal abiotic conditions. Elucidating the extent to which biotic interactions play a role at a macro‐scale is challenging due to its inherent complexity. In this study, we characterized the independent contribution of prey abundance distributions on the Merlin's wintering distribution (Falco columbarius). Then, to examine the hypothesis that biotic interactions may counteract other suboptimal conditions, we tested for a differential importance of physical habitat characteristics and prey abundance distributions along the species’ wintering range. Location Peninsular Spain. Methods We modelled the Merlin's geographic distribution with Boosted Classification Trees as a function of environmental predictors (environmental model) and prey relative abundances (prey model), either separately or jointly (combined model). We tested whether the predictive success of environmental and prey models differ spatially. Results Partialling out the variation into independent components we found that the prey abundance distributions explained the largest part of variation. Furthermore, the first four predictors with the highest contribution in our combined models were the abundances of prey species. Finally, our model predictions revealed a north‐to‐south increase in the importance of prey abundance distributions. Interestingly, our results suggest that biotic interactions can enable species to inhabit a wider range of suboptimal habitat conditions on range margins. Main conclusions Relevant biotic interactions may not be always fully interchangeable with environmental surrogates. Abiotic factors and biotic interactions may shape species range limits and cores of distributions differently. Neglecting biotic interactions may compromise spatiotemporal transferability of SDMs, especially on species margins, and hence their applicability.

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“…Some studies in Europe and Asia, where our previous studies have been made, indicate that the presence of the common cuckoo and its abundance are reliable bioindicators of bird species richness, much more so than alternative bioindicators such as raptor abundance (Morelli et al. , , c, Tryjanowski and Morelli ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 76%

“…Cuckoos are unlikely, but highly efficient bioindicators of species richness and abundance of birds (Morelli et al. , , Tryjanowski and Morelli ). In fact, they could be more efficient indicators than alternative taxa used previously, such as raptor species (Sergio et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Multiple species of cuckoos are superior predictors of bird species richness in Asia

et al. 2017

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Abstract. The abundance and the presence of common cuckoos Cuculus canorus have been shown to predict species richness of birds across Europe, while there are no such analyses available for other continents where species richness of parasitic cuckoos is larger. Here, we tested whether species richness of birds increased with the number of cuckoo species in two study areas in China and one in Japan. We also tested whether species richness of birds can be predicted by the number of cuckoo individuals. Furthermore, we compared the strength of association between overall bird species richness and species richness of cuckoos, Paridae, Corvidae, and birds of prey. This is the first study demonstrating that cuckoo species richness is more strongly associated with overall bird species richness than richness of species belonging to other families, and rather than occurrence of a single cuckoo species, as already demonstrated for the common cuckoo in Europe. The number of cuckoo species was positively associated with both non-host and host species richness. We found evidence of the number of cuckoo species being associated with species richness of birds independently of country and year, while abundance of individual cuckoos was not a statistically significant predictor. Furthermore, we showed that richness of host species is strongly positively correlated with overall bird species richness in both countries. This implies that the high species richness of cuckoos in South-East Asia is a reliable predictor of overall bird species richness.

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Cuckoo and biodiversity: Testing the correlation between species occurrence and bird species richness in Europe

Cited by 31 publications

References 81 publications

The common cuckoo is an effective indicator of high bird species richness in Asia and Europe

The common cuckoo is an effective indicator of high bird species richness in Asia and Europe

Macro‐spatial structure of biotic interactions in the distribution of a raptor species

Multiple species of cuckoos are superior predictors of bird species richness in Asia

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