Wildfire–vegetation dynamics affect predictions of climate change impact on bird communities

Abstract

Community‐level climate change indicators have been proposed to appraise the impact of global warming on community composition. However, non‐climate factors may also critically influence species distribution and biological community assembly. The aim of this paper was to study how fire–vegetation dynamics can modify our ability to predict the impact of climate change on bird communities, as described through a widely‐used climate change indicator: the community thermal index (CTI). Potential changes in bird species assemblage were predicted using the spatially‐explicit species assemblage modelling framework – SESAM – that applies successive filters to constrained predictions of richness and composition obtained by stacking species distribution models that hierarchically integrate climate change and wildfire–vegetation dynamics. We forecasted future values of CTI between current conditions and 2050, across a wide range of fire–vegetation and climate change scenarios. Fire–vegetation dynamics were simulated for Catalonia (Mediterranean basin) using a process‐based model that reproduces the spatial interaction between wildfire, vegetation dynamics and wildfire management under two IPCC climate scenarios. Net increases in CTI caused by the concomitant impact of climate warming and an increasingly severe wildfire regime were predicted. However, the overall increase in the CTI could be partially counterbalanced by forest expansion via land abandonment and efficient wildfire suppression policies. CTI is thus strongly dependent on complex interactions between climate change and fire–vegetation dynamics. The potential impacts on bird communities may be underestimated if an overestimation of richness is predicted but not constrained. Our findings highlight the need to explicitly incorporate these interactions when using indicators to interpret and forecast climate change impact in dynamic ecosystems. In fire‐prone systems, wildfire management and land‐use policies can potentially offset or heighten the effects of climate change on biological communities, offering an opportunity to address the impact of global climate change proactively.

The positive carbon stocks–biodiversity relationship in forests: co‐occurrence and drivers across five subclimates

“…Most of the forest birds in Spain are cold‐dwelling species, as they are located in the southern limit of their distribution in Europe, so an increase in temperature can have a detrimental effect on these forest bird communities (Regos et al. ). On the other hand, mean annual precipitation was found to have a negative effect on C stocks and biodiversity in Quebec.…”

Trade‐offs and synergies between bird conservation and wildfire suppression in the face of global change

“…We used occurrence (presence/absence) data for breeding bird species at two different spatial extents and resolutions, sourced from: (a) the Atlas of European Breeding Birds (EBCC data), which compiles the occurrence of breeding bird species in Europe between the late 1980s and early 1990s in 3,165 grid cells of 50‐km resolution (Hagemeijer & Blair, ) to effectively include the climate niche of the target species by encompassing the widest possible distributional range; and (b) the Catalan Breeding Birds Atlas (CBBA data), which reports information on breeding bird distribution in Catalonia between 1999 and 2002 based on intensive surveys of 3,077 grid cells at 1‐km resolution (Brotons, Herrando, Estrada, Pedrocchi & Martin, ). Among the 214 bird species that breed in Catalonia, we focused on those that are expected to be affected by fire–vegetation dynamics and climate change to illustrate how the combined effect of these drivers can affect the performance of the PAs (De Cáceres, Brotons, Aquilué & Fortin, ; Regos, Clavero, D'Amen, Guisan & Brotons, ). From this initial dataset, species counting less than 30 presences were removed to ensure sufficient information for modelling.…”

Incorporating habitat suitability into community projections: Ant responses to climate change in the Australian Wet Tropics

“…However, this would not be the case if changes in climate indirectly reduce habitat suitability. This might occur as a direct response of vegetation to a changing climate, or indirectly through changes in, for example, fire regimes (Davis, Higuera, & Sala, ; Regos, Clavero, & D'amen, Guisan & Brotons, ). Changes in vegetation structure can have a greater effect on microclimate than changes in macroclimate (Williams, Bolitho, & Fox, ).…”