Diet of Dippers<i>Cinclus cinclus</i>during an early winter spate and the possible implications for Dipper populations subjected to climate change

Taylor, Alison J.; O’Halloran, John

doi:10.1080/00063650109461215

Cited by 16 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Variability in high flows causes large fluctuations in water velocity and depth, which can determine the availability of foraging habitats[20] and influence foraging efficiency and net energy gain[31]. We found clear positive quadratic associations between the distribution of some species and measures of high flow variability and high flow frequency, suggesting that some species require a range of variability around high flows.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Avian Community Responses to Variability in River Hydrology

et al. 2013

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River flow is a major driver of morphological structure and community dynamics in riverine-floodplain ecosystems. Flow influences in-stream communities through changes in water velocity, depth, temperature, turbidity and nutrient fluxes, and perturbations in the organisation of lower trophic levels are cascaded through the food web, resulting in shifts in food availability for consumer species. River birds are sensitive to spatial and phenological mismatches with aquatic prey following flow disturbances; however, the role of flow as a determinant of riparian ecological structure remains poorly known. This knowledge is crucial to help to predict if, and how, riparian communities will be influenced by climate-induced changes in river flow characterised by more extreme high (i.e. flood) and/or low (i.e. drought) flow events. Here, we combine national-scale datasets of river bird surveys and river flow archives to understand how hydrological disturbance has affected the distribution of riparian species at higher trophic levels. Data were analysed for 71 river locations using a Generalized Additive Model framework and a model averaging procedure. Species had complex but biologically interpretable associations with hydrological indices, with species’ responses consistent with their ecology, indicating that hydrological-disturbance has implications for higher trophic levels in riparian food webs. Our quantitative analysis of river flow-bird relationships demonstrates the potential vulnerability of riparian species to the impacts of changing flow variability and represents an important contribution in helping to understand how bird communities might respond to a climate change-induced increase in the intensity of floods and droughts. Moreover, the success in relating parameters of river flow variability to species’ distributions highlights the need to include river flow data in climate change impact models of species’ distributions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Avian Community Responses to Variability in River Hydrology

et al. 2013

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“…reported to have a range of behavioural effects on dippers that include immediate behavioural change, such as alterations in feeding, diving and prey use (Da Prato, 1981;Taylor & O'halloran, 2001), or altitudinal migrations into or away tributaries (Morrissey, 2004;Morrissey, Bendell-Young & Elliott, 2004). Secondly, some variations in breeding performance between years with contrasting discharge were detected.…”

Section: Response Of Dippers To Flow Regimementioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of flooding on avian top‐predators and their invertebrate prey in a monsoonal Taiwan stream

et al. 2008

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1. The effects of flooding on top predators are poorly understood globally, but particularly in monsoonal streams. We therefore attempted to assess how inter-annual and intra-annual variations in flood magnitude affected an obligate riverine predator, the brown dipper (Cinclus pallasii), and its invertebrate prey, in the mountain Tachia River, Taiwan. Major flooding in one of the study years (2005) allowed an insight into the effects of abnormally large flows. 2. The abundance and biomass of insects, and the abundance of dippers, decreased steadily from 2003 to 2005 as flood magnitude grew, but then increased in 2006 when more typical discharge returned. Dipper abundance, insect abundance and insect biomass were all strongly positively inter-related, but negatively related to discharge. Insect biomass, rather than abundance, was more useful in predicting brown dipper abundance. 3. Aquatic insect composition fluctuated among sampling years, revealed by non-metric multidimensional scaling, and these fluctuations were also related to discharge. In turn, dipper abundance and the mean body size of aquatic insects declined with the shift in insect composition as flow increased. 4. These data illustrate how discharge fluctuations can have pronounced effects on top predators in streams, mediated in this case by fluctuating prey abundance. While contributions from bird movement, breeding performance and mortality were not clearly differentiated, our data reveal how dippers have strategies to accommodate varying discharge in river systems. We suggest that the effects of floods on dippers should be taken into account when using this group as indicators of river quality

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“…They are also sensitive to the average air and water temperature, which influences population dynamics and laying dates of White-throated Dippers (Cinclus cinclus) (Saether et al 2000, Hegelbach 2001, D' Amico et al 2003. Additionally, dippers are sensitive to extreme weather events: floods can cause their reproduction to fail (Shaw 1978, Price and Bock 1983, Morrissey 2004, Royan et al 2014, change their foraging behavior and diet (Da Prato 1981, Taylor andO'Halloran 2001), and decrease their survival (Lebreton et al 1992, Marzolin 2002, Chiu et al 2013, abundance (Chiu et al 2008), and distribution (Royan et al 2015). Changes in flow regime are also associated with changes in the presence and absence of White-throated Dippers (Royan et al 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%