Species interactions and climate change: How the disruption of species co‐occurrence will impact on an avian forest guild

Abstract

Interspecific interactions are crucial in determining species occurrence and community assembly. Understanding these interactions is thus essential for correctly predicting species' responses to climate change. We focussed on an avian forest guild of four hole‐nesting species with differing sensitivities to climate that show a range of well‐understood reciprocal interactions, including facilitation, competition and predation. We modelled the potential distributions of black woodpecker and boreal, tawny and Ural owl, and tested whether the spatial patterns of the more widespread species (excluding Ural owl) were shaped by interspecific interactions. We then modelled the potential future distributions of all four species, evaluating how the predicted changes will alter the overlap between the species' ranges, and hence the spatial outcomes of interactions. Forest cover/type and climate were important determinants of habitat suitability for all species. Field data analysed with N‐mixture models revealed effects of interspecific interactions on current species abundance, especially in boreal owl (positive effects of black woodpecker, negative effects of tawny owl). Climate change will impact the assemblage both at species and guild levels, as the potential area of range overlap, relevant for species interactions, will change in both proportion and extent in the future. Boreal owl, the most climate‐sensitive species in the guild, will retreat, and the range overlap with its main predator, tawny owl, will increase in the remaining suitable area: climate change will thus impact on boreal owl both directly and indirectly. Climate change will cause the geographical alteration or disruption of species interaction networks, with different consequences for the species belonging to the guild and a likely spatial increase of competition and/or intraguild predation. Our work shows significant interactions and important potential changes in the overlap of areas suitable for the interacting species, which reinforce the importance of including relevant biotic interactions in predictive climate change models for increasing forecast accuracy.

Interactive influences of fluctuations of main food resources and climate change on long-term population decline of Tengmalm’s owls in the boreal forest

“…This interpretation was also supported by the fact that start of egg-laying was delayed during 1970s-2010s although ambient temperatures increased and snow depth simultaneously did not increase prior to and during the egg-laying period. It is alarming that in similar adverse situation due to forest habitat loss and degradation in boreal zone are many forest-specialists belonging to different taxa [113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121] , and the situation may deteriorate as climate change progresses [2][3][4]122 , unless major measures to reverse this situation are taken and actually implemented as soon as possible.…”

Sea freshening may drive the ecological impacts of emerging and existing invasive non‐native species

“…Intraguild predation is a common feature of coexisting amphipod species (Dick et al, 1999;MacNeil et al, 2004); however, the influence of climate change on intraguild predation has received little focus to date (Brambilla et al, 2019). While some studies have found differential effects of water conductivity on the degree of intraguild predation between amphipod species (Dick & Platvoet, 1996;Kestrup et al, 2011) exchanges between freshwater and sea water, and thus withstand selection pressure at an early stage of the invasion process (Briski et al, 2018;Piscart et al, 2011).…”

“…Amphipod INNS are expected to continue to spread around the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea (Holopainen et al., 2016), and beyond (Grabowski et al., 2007; Son et al., 2020), with changing temperature and salinity conditions likely to further enhance ecological impacts. Intraguild predation is a common feature of coexisting amphipod species (Dick et al., 1999; MacNeil et al., 2004); however, the influence of climate change on intraguild predation has received little focus to date (Brambilla et al., 2019). While some studies have found differential effects of water conductivity on the degree of intraguild predation between amphipod species (Dick & Platvoet, 1996; Kestrup et al., 2011), there is a need to expand such studies to include other abiotic stressors associated with climate change, and to elucidate the associated effects of multiple predatory amphipod species on each other, as well as prey species.…”

The good, the bad and the ugly of COVID-19 lockdown effects on wildlife conservation: Insights from the first European locked down country

“…This is clearly exemplified by acoustic surveys of singing birds. Noise and other disturbances determined by human activities may in fact reduce bird detectability by lowering observers' ability to hear a call or song ( Brambilla et al, 2020 ; Kissling et al, 2010 ; Pacifici et al, 2008 ). Therefore, the strong reduction of background noise caused by e.g.…”