What drives current population trends in forest birds – forest quantity, quality or climate? A large-scale analysis from northern Europe

Ram, Dafne; Axelsson, Anna; Green, Martin A.; Smith, Henrik G.; Lindström, Åke

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2016.11.013

Cited by 47 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Although the general relative decrease among species with northerly distribution that we observed in most of the assessed habitat types ( (Hedwall & Brunet, 2016). Furthermore, similar strong effects and rapid changes correlated with a warming climate have been observed in NW Europe for other organisms, including bryophytes (Tyler, 2015), birds (Ram et al, 2017), dragonflies (Termaat, van Grunsven, Plate, & van Strien, 2015) and butterflies (Pettersson & Franz en, 2011). However, considering the sessile nature, general longevity and dependence on historic land-use of vascular plants, they have generally been expected to respond relatively slowly to climatic changes (cf.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

“…Still, there is a lack of data and scientific evidence of broad-scale temporal biodiversity changes that may form a basis for conservation actions and planning (Bernhardt-R€ omermann et al, 2015). Citizen-science-based monitoring schemes have been introduced for some well-known, but relatively species-poor, groups such as birds (Ram, Axelsson, Green, Smith, & Lindstr€ om, 2017) and butterflies (Videvall, € Ockinger, & Pettersson, 2016), but knowledge about what is happening with major organism groups still rely on limited case studies, interpolations and educated guesses based on largely undocumented personal observations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Climate warming and land‐use changes drive broad‐scale floristic changes in Southern Sweden

Tyler

Herbertsson

Olsson

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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Land-use changes, pollution and climate warming during the 20th century have caused changes in biodiversity across the world. However, in many cases, the environmental drivers are poorly understood. To identify and rank the drivers currently causing broad-scale floristic changes in N Europe, we analysed data from two vascular plant surveys of 200 randomly selected 2.5 × 2.5 km grid-squares in Scania, southernmost Sweden, conducted 1989-2006 and 2008-2015, respectively, and related the change in frequency (performance) of the species to a wide range of species-specific plant traits. We chose traits representing all plausible drivers of recent floristic changes: climatic change (northern distribution limit, flowering time), land-use change (light requirement, response to grazing/mowing, response to soil disturbance), drainage (water requirement), acidification (pH optimum), nitrogen deposition and eutrophication (N requirement, N fixation ability, carnivory, parasitism, mycorrhizal associations), pollinator decline (mode of reproduction) and changes in CO levels (photosynthetic pathway). Our results suggest that climate warming and changes in land-use were the main drivers of changes in the flora during the last decades. Climate warming appeared as the most influential driver, with northern distribution limit explaining 30%-60% of the variance in the GLMM models. However, the relative importance of the drivers differed among habitat types, with grassland species being affected the most by cessation of grazing/mowing and species of ruderal habitats by on-going concentration of both agriculture and human population to the most productive soils. For wetland species, only pH optimum was significantly related to species performance, possibly an effect of the increasing humification of acidic water bodies. An observed relative decline of mycorrhizal species may possibly be explained by decreasing nitrogen deposition resulting in less competition for phosphorus. We found no effect of shortage or decline of pollinating lepidopterans and bees.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 79%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Climate warming and land‐use changes drive broad‐scale floristic changes in Southern Sweden

Tyler

Herbertsson

Olsson

et al. 2018

Global Change Biology

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“…Our findings are in contrast to the general decline of birds in areas dominated by other land uses, e.g. farmlands, in Europe (Donald et al 2001;Inger et al 2015;Reif and Hanzelka 2016;European Bird Census Council 2018), but confirm the observed population trends of woodland bird species in Europe (Gregory et al 2007;Ram et al 2017). In temperate regions with stable amounts of forested land cover and sustainable forest management, non-migratory forest bird populations are stable or even increasing, with evidence that both migratory and resident species may benefit from moderate-intensity forest management or disturbance (King and DeGraaf 2000;Bakermans and Rodewald 2009;Sheehan et al 2014).…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…However, comparing the metropolitan area of Brussels, Belgium, with a nearby forest area in Wallonia shows that the suburban environment has no significant effect on forest bird populations (Weiserbs 2012). Notably, the observed positive effects of environment may not persist in light of expected larger changes in climate and climate variability over Europe towards the end of this century (IPCC 2013;Ram et al 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive association between forest management, environmental change, and forest bird abundance

et al. 2019

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Background: The global decrease in wildlife populations, especially birds, is mainly due to land use change and increasing intensity of land use (Parmesan and Yohe 2003). However, impacts of management tools to mitigate biodiversity loss at regional and global scales are less apparent in forest regions that have a constant forest area, and which did not suffer from habitat degradation, and where forests are sustainably managed, such as in Central Europe or the northeastern USA. A biodiversity assessment for Germany suggested, for example, that bird populations were constant (Bundesamt für Naturschutz 2015).Results: This study shows that changes in the environment and in forest management over the past 45 years have had a significant, positive effect on the abundance of non-migratory forest bird species in Central Europe. Economy (timber prices and GDP), forest management (timber harvest and mixed forest area), and environmental factors (atmospheric CO 2 concentration and nitrogen deposition) were investigated together with changes in abundances of migratory and non-migratory forest birds using partial least squares path modeling. Climate change, resulting in longer seasons and milder winters, and forest management, promoting tree diversity, were significantly positively related to the abundance of non-migratory forest birds and explained 92% of the variation in their abundance in Europe. Regionally-migrating forest birds had stable populations with large variation, while birds migrating across continents declined in recent decades, suggesting significant, contrasting changes in bird populations in Europe. In northeastern North America we also found evidence that non-migratory forests have experienced long-term increases in abundance, and this increase was related to management. The increase of populations of nonmigratory forest birds in Europe and North America is associated with an increase in structural diversity and disturbances at the landscape level. Conclusions:Our results suggest that reports about bird decline in forests should separate between migratory and non-migratory bird species. Efforts to mitigate the general decline in bird abundance should focus on land-use systems other than forests and support sustainable forest management independent of economic conditions.

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“…To do so, we used an approach relying on three complementary measures of impact -the classical BACI contrast, the CI-contribution and the CI-divergence -to better quantify changes between periods and treatments along with their uncertainties, ultimately bringing further insights about possible environmental impacts (Chevalier et al 2018). Because Swedish bird communities and populations have changed over the past 20 years, likely in response to climate change and changes in forestry policies (Lindström et al 2013, Tayleur et al 2015, Ram et al 2017, we also investigated whether the hurricane induced changes in long-term trends. We further explored effects of the hurricane on the composition and the functional structure of bird communities, considering all species that were detected by the monitoring program within the impacted area (149 species).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in forest bird abundance, community structure and composition following a hurricane in Sweden

et al. 2019

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The effect that extreme natural events have on biological diversity is relatively poorly known. We used a before-after control-impact (BACI) design to analyze changes in bird abundances and communities following Hurricane Gudrun, which struck southern Sweden in January 2005, felling 75 million m 3 of forest and causing damage to 5% of forested areas (half a million hectares) in a few hours. We used recent measures of impact in combination with classical BACI contrasts to analyze bird count data from a monitoring program in Sweden. We investigated changes in the abundance of 17 species commonly found in forests, along with changes in species composition and functional structure of the bird community. In total, we considered 34 response variables and examined whether responses were immediate or long-term. There was no evidence of a strong effect of the hurricane on the abundances of six species. Estimates of the effects on five species were too uncertain to draw inferences. We detected positive and negative effects of the hurricane on the abundances of the remaining six species, but the magnitude of effects often was small. Generally, the effects were in the expected direction: negative on birds associated with mature forest and positive on birds associated with open land or young forest. We found evidence of an increase in the proportion of species that nest on the ground and a decrease in the proportion of species that nest in cavities and trees. In contrast, the hurricane had no discernible effect on functional measures of diversity (richness, evenness or divergence), or on communities' reproductive or morphological characteristics. Our results suggest that the hurricane affected bird populations and communities, but the magnitude of effects was generally small.

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What drives current population trends in forest birds – forest quantity, quality or climate? A large-scale analysis from northern Europe

Cited by 47 publications

References 48 publications

Climate warming and land‐use changes drive broad‐scale floristic changes in Southern Sweden

Climate warming and land‐use changes drive broad‐scale floristic changes in Southern Sweden

Positive association between forest management, environmental change, and forest bird abundance

Changes in forest bird abundance, community structure and composition following a hurricane in Sweden

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