Breeding Distributions of North American Bird Species Moving North as a Result of Climate Change

Abstract

Geographic changes in species distributions toward traditionally cooler climes is one hypothesized indicator of recent global climate change. We examined distribution data on 56 bird species. If global warming is affecting species distributions across the temperate northern hemisphere, these data should show the same northward range expansions of birds that have been reported for Great Britain. Because a northward shift of distributions might be due to multidirectional range expansions for multiple species, we also examined the possibility that birds with northern distributions may be expanding their ranges southward. There was no southward expansion of birds with a northern distribution, indicating that there is no evidence of overall range expansion of insectivorous and granivorous birds in North America. As predicted, the northern limit of birds with a southern distribution showed a significant shift northward (2.35 km/year). This northward shift is similar to that observed in previous work conducted in Great Britain: the widespread nature of this shift in species distributions over two distinct geographical regions and its coincidence with a period of global warming suggests a connection with global climate change.

Are Swiss birds tracking climate change?

“…Assessing shifts directly at range margins is always risky because occurrence in this part of the distribution is often the result of isolated dispersal events which may result in non-lasting populations (Shoo et al, 2006). Moreover, an improvement in the detection probability between the two periods of assessment can lead to a spurious conclusion of a range expansion and this is particularly true when only range margins are assessed (Hitch and Leberg, 2007). It is therefore recommended to assess changes at margins in a substantial range.…”

“…The simplest example would be the latitudinal gradient to assess poleward shifts. Our approach can be compared to the methodologies of Thomas and Lennon (1999), Hitch and Leberg (2007) or Hill et al (2002), which are essentially based on the average of the 10 northernmost/southermost latitudes. Assessing shifts directly at range margins is always risky because occurrence in this part of the distribution is often the result of isolated dispersal events which may result in non-lasting populations (Shoo et al, 2006).…”

“…In recent years, evidence has mounted about its impacts on different groups of species and stages of a species lifecycle (Hughes, 2000;Parmesan, 2006). Especially for birds (Crick, 2004;Chambers et al, 2005;Leech and Crick, 2007;Wormworth and Mallon, 2007), climate change has been shown to induce poleward (Hitch and Leberg, 2007) and upward shifts of the distributional ranges (Pounds et al, 1999), to alter the timing of major seasonal events such as migration (Jenni and Kéry, 2003;Jonzen et al, 2006;Gordo, 2007) or egg laying (Crick and Sparks, 1999;Torti and Dunn, 2005;Both and te Marvelde, 2007) and to influence survival and productivity and hence, population dynamics (Sanz et al, 2003).…”

Correlates of vulnerability to climate-induced distribution changes in European avifauna: habitat, migration and endemism

“…In retrospective analyses Thomas & Lennon (1999) showed a northwards shift for >100 species breeding in the UK; this has subsequently been found for North American birds (Hitch & Leberg 2007) and Finnish birds (Brommer 2004), but future predictions are surprisingly sparse. In one of the most comprehensive CEM analyses for birds to date, Huntley et al (2007) provided 24 detailed CEM analyses predicting late 21 st century distributions for 431 European breeding species.…”

A System for Assessing Vulnerability of Species (SAVS) to Climate Change

“…Habitat-Predicted changes to global temperature and precipitation patterns will, consequently, alter habitats (McCarty 2001;Hitch and Leberg 2007;Sekercioglu and others 2008). We identified five criteria predictive …”