Woodland Mediterranean birds can resist a dry extreme cold wave

Abstract

The ecological consequences of climate extreme events are still poorly understood, especially those related to cold episodes. Winter cold spells might imperil the energy balance of small passerines, thus compromising their survivorship. Here we analyze how the abundance and habitat use of three tree-gleaning passerine species wintering in a montane oakwood of central Spain at ca. 1,300 m a.s.l. was influenced by the cold wave that hit Europe in February 2012. We monitored temperature, wind and the relative abundance of great tit Parus major, blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus and long-tailed tit Aegithalos caudatus in 15 plots throughout three periods: before, during and after the cold wave. Our results clearly rule out widespread mortality and temporal migration of the studied passerine populations, as the abundance of these species did not diminish during the cold wave. Moreover, the species usually foraging higher in the tree canopy -and thus more exposed to wind-moved to the less windy woodland plots (long-tailed tit) and reduced their foraging height above ground during the cold wave (long-tailed tit and blue tit), probably to mitigate the deleterious effects of wind chill. Therefore, these forest birds were able to cope with a dry cold wave that was statistically extreme in terms of temperature and wind chill, according to the historic climate records of the region. It seems that, at least when foraging substrates are not heavily covered by snow or ice, Mediterranean birds can resist an extreme cold wave [Current Zoology 60 (4): [429][430][431][432][433][434][435][436][437] 2014].

Temperature‐related geographical shifts among passerines: contrasting processes along poleward and equatorward range margins

“…; Malinowska et al. ; Villen‐Perez and Carrascal ). Given that our study incorporates 5 years of data to determine thermal limits in breeding distribution, our determination of thermal limit temperatures are more representative of seasonal temperature exposure over longer time periods and how these relate to distributional limits.…”

“…The warm and cool thermal values are more representative of distributional thermal extremes. There is some literature to suggest that passerine distributions are resilient to temperature extremes that are of short duration or intensity (Pipoly et al 2013;Malinowska et al 2014;Villen-Perez and Carrascal 2014). Given that our study incorporates 5 years of data to determine thermal limits in breeding distribution, our determination of thermal limit temperatures are more representative of seasonal temperature exposure over longer time periods and how these relate to distributional limits.…”