The contribution of landscape features, climate and topography in shaping taxonomical and functional diversity of avian communities in a heterogeneous Alpine region

Abstract

Understanding the effects of landscape composition and configuration, climate, and topography on bird diversity is necessary to identify distribution drivers, potential impacts of land use changes, and future conservation strategies. We surveyed bird communities in a study area located in the Central Alps (Autonomous Province of South Tyrol, northeast Italy), by means of point counts and investigated taxonomic and functional diversity at two spatial scales along gradients of land use/land cover (LULC) intensity and elevation. We also explored how environmental variables influence bird traits and red-list categories. Models combining drivers of different types were highly supported, pointing towards synergetic effects of different types of environmental variables on bird communities. The model containing only LULC compositional variables was the most supported one among the single-group models: LULC composition plays a crucial role in shaping local biodiversity and hence bird communities, even across broad landscape gradients. Particularly relevant were wetlands, open habitats, agricultural mosaics made up of small habitat patches and settlements, ecotonal and structural elements in agricultural settings, and continuous forests. To conserve bird diversity in the Alps, planning and management practices promoting and maintaining small fields, structural elements, and a mosaic of different LULC types should be supported, while preserving continuous forests at the same time. Additionally, pastures, extensively used meadows, and wetlands are key to conservation. These strategies might mitigate the impacts of global change on bird diversity in the Alps and in other European mountain areas.

Species traits and invasion history as predictors of freshwater fish’s invasion success in Europe

“…For model selection, a multimodel inference approach (Burnham and Anderson 2002) was followed. To select a reduced subset of candidate variables, rstly was ran a backward variable selection based on the Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) for each response variable (four stages; as similarly done in Anderle et al 2022). Based on this reduced subset of variables, a set of candidate models (Supplementary Information Tables S2 to S5) was de ned following two main a priori assumptions: (1) the success of alien species at each invasion stage always depend on the introduction history and the outcome of the preceding stages; (2) any other variable (functional and ecological traits)…”

Testing the links between bird diversity, alien species and disturbance within a human‐modified landscape

“…We classified the surveyed bird species using a set of 10 functional traits that reflected resource‐use of individuals (Flynn et al 2009) and resource overlap between species (Andrikou‐Charitidou et al 2020), and that influence a species' ability to respond to habitat changes (Anderle et al 2022): 1) clutch size; 2) number of broods per year; 3) body mass; 4) migratory status; 5) territoriality; 6) breeding season habitat use; 7) breeding season diet; 8) foraging stratum; 9) foraging technique; and 10) nesting habit (Supporting information for a detailed description and data sources). Apart from clutch size, number of broods per year and body mass, the categories from the other traits were translated into binary variables (i.e.…”

Alien bird species decrease the diversity of bird communities across human-disturbed landscapes

“…We classified the surveyed bird species using a set of 10 functional traits that reflected resource-use of individuals (Flynn et al, 2009) and resource overlap between species (Andrikou-Charitidou et al, 2020), and that influence species response ability to habitat changes (Anderle et al, 2022): i) clutch size; ii) number of broods per year; iii) body mass; iv) migratory status; v) territoriality; vi) breeding season habitat use; vii) breeding season diet; viii) foraging stratum; ix) foraging technique; and, x) nesting habit (see Supporting Information 1 for a detailed description and data sources). Apart from clutch size, number of broods per year and body mass, the categories from the other traits were translated into binary variables (i.e.…”