Climate change and habitat conversion favour the same species

Frishkoff, Luke O.; Karp, Daniel S.; Flanders, Jon; Zook, James; Hadly, Elizabeth A.; Daily, Gretchen C.; M’Gonigle, Leithen K.

doi:10.1111/ele.12645

Cited by 136 publications

(167 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…We found interactive effects for only one diaspore species – removal rates and distances for diaspores of J. mutabilis declined with increasing aridity in less‐disturbed areas, but they increased slightly with increasing aridity in more disturbed areas. Most studies that have found interactive effects between climate variables and anthropogenic disturbance were conducted at larger spatial scales than our study (Brook et al., ; Frishkoff et al., ; Gibb et al., ). For example, Gibb et al.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Effects of increasing aridity and chronic anthropogenic disturbance on seed dispersal by ants in Brazilian Caatinga

Oliveira

Andersen

Arnán

et al. 2019

Journal of Animal Ecology

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Anthropogenic disturbance and climate change are the main drivers of biodiversity loss and ecological services around the globe. There is concern that climate change will exacerbate the impacts of disturbance and thereby promote biotic homogenization, but its consequences for ecological services are unknown. We investigated the individual and interactive effects of increasing chronic anthropogenic disturbance (CAD) and aridity on seed dispersal services provided by ants in Caatinga vegetation of north‐eastern Brazil. The study was conducted in Catimbau National Park, Pernambuco, Brazil. Within an area of 214 km2, we established nineteen 50 × 20 m plots that encompassed gradients of both CAD and aridity. We offered diaspores of six plant species, three myrmecochorous diaspores and three fleshy fruits that are secondarily dispersed by ants. We then quantified the number of interactions, seed removal rate and dispersal distances, and noted the identities of interacting ant species. Finally, we used pitfall trap data to quantify the abundances of ant disperser species in each plot. Our results show that overall composition of ant disperser species varied along the gradients of CAD and aridity, but the composition of high‐quality dispersers varied only with aridity. The total number of interactions, rates of removal and mean distance of removal all declined with increasing aridity, but they were not related to CAD. These same patterns were found when considering only high‐quality disperser species, driven by the responses of the dominant disperser Dinoponera quadriceps. We found little evidence of interactive effects of CAD and aridity on seed dispersal services by ants. Our study indicates that CAD and aridity act independently on ant‐mediated seed dispersal services in Caatinga, such that the impacts of anthropogenic disturbance are unlikely to change under the forecast climate of increased aridity. However, our findings highlight the vulnerability of seed dispersal services provided by ants in Caatinga under an increasingly arid climate due to low functional redundancy in high‐quality disperser species. Given the large number of plant species dependent on ants for seed dispersal, this has important implications for future plant recruitment and, consequently, for the composition of Caatinga plant communities.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 69%

Effects of increasing aridity and chronic anthropogenic disturbance on seed dispersal by ants in Brazilian Caatinga

Oliveira

Andersen

Arnán

et al. 2019

Journal of Animal Ecology

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“…4). It appears that the greater thermal tolerance of western birds might allow them to use modified landscapes to a greater degree than thermally constrained eastern birds -a finding consistent with patterns in Neotropical agricultural landscapes (Frishkoff et al 2016) -and future research should test this apparent link, perhaps through the measurement of thermal stress. Moreover, these differences correlated with the degree of annual temperature variation in the environment and with community-level differences in thermal sensitivity across regions (Srinivasan et al 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…The adaptation of species to locally prevalent environmental conditions is likely to influence their sensitivity to land-use change, because habitat modification alters the abiotic environment, especially the thermal environment. Indeed, birds adapted to dry Neotropical forests have been found to be more tolerant of the conversion of forest to agriculture (Frishkoff et al 2016, Karp et al 2018, and low thermal tolerances in reptiles and amphibians are associated with greater sensitivity to habitat change (Frishkoff et al 2015). Further, forest canopies buffer the understorey against thermal extremes, leading to lower temperature variation within forests than in anthropogenically modified habitats (DeFrenne et al 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Annual temperature variation influences the vulnerability of montane bird communities to land‐use change

2019

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Understanding how and why species respond to land-use change is one of the central challenges in conservation biology, yet the causes of variation in the responses of species to land-use change remain unclear. We tested whether adaptation to different abiotic environments influenced the vulnerability of bird communities to agricultural expansion in the Himalayan mountain range, which exhibits a strong east-west gradient in annual temperature variation. We did so by surveying bird communities in forest and agriculture at opposite ends of that gradient. We contrasted metrics of species richness, diversity, community composition and forest dependency across land-use types and regions, and tested whether species' thermal sensitivity influenced their response to the replacement of forest with agriculture. Agricultural land in the relatively aseasonal east harboured significantly fewer bird species than did forests, a pattern that is starkly reversed in the highly seasonal west. For species common to both regions, eastern populations used forest ~35% more than did western populations. While western species were less constrained by temperature than eastern species, western species with narrow thermal tolerances were also more forest dependent. Selection across a stark environmental gradient on a common species pool appears to have altered the vulnerability of Himalayan birds to forest loss, with communities in the relatively aseasonal east much more sensitive to forest conversion than those in the west. Adaptation to local environmental conditions appears to mediate species' responses to land use change, with thermal specialists more vulnerable to forest loss than species with greater thermal tolerances. Species' responses to global change may differ predictably along abiotic gradients even within a single region or biodiversity hotspot, and such variation must be addressed in conservation planning.

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“…Key drivers of population declines include climate change and conversion of natural habitat to anthropogenic land uses, both of which have had major impacts on biological systems (Newbold et al., ; Rosenzweig et al., ) and are widely thought to be global threats to biodiversity (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, ; Thomas et al., ). The response of animal populations to these rapid environmental changes has not been consistent: some populations have experienced increasing abundance and expanding distributions; conversely, other populations have suffered shrinking abundances and distributions (Frishkoff et al., ; La Marca et al., ; Thomas, Franco, & Hill, ). Declines in animal populations result in an erosion of ecosystem function and loss of ecosystem services (Ehrlich & Daily, ; Parmesan & Yohe, ; Thomas et al., ; Winfree, Fox, Williams, Reilly, & Cariveau, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rapid warming is associated with population decline among terrestrial birds and mammals globally

Spooner

Pearson

Freeman

2018

Global Change Biology

173

135

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Animal populations have undergone substantial declines in recent decades. These declines have occurred alongside rapid, human-driven environmental change, including climate warming. An association between population declines and environmental change is well established, yet there has been relatively little analysis of the importance of the rates of climate warming and its interaction with conversion to anthropogenic land use in causing population declines. Here we present a global assessment of the impact of rapid climate warming and anthropogenic land use conversion on 987 populations of 481 species of terrestrial birds and mammals since 1950. We collated spatially referenced population trends of at least 5 years' duration from the Living Planet database and used mixed effects models to assess the association of these trends with observed rates of climate warming, rates of conversion to anthropogenic land use, body mass, and protected area coverage. We found that declines in population abundance for both birds and mammals are greater in areas where mean temperature has increased more rapidly, and that this effect is more pronounced for birds. However, we do not find a strong effect of conversion to anthropogenic land use, body mass, or protected area coverage. Our results identify a link between rapid warming and population declines, thus supporting the notion that rapid climate warming is a global threat to biodiversity.

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Climate change and habitat conversion favour the same species

Cited by 136 publications

References 47 publications

Effects of increasing aridity and chronic anthropogenic disturbance on seed dispersal by ants in Brazilian Caatinga

Effects of increasing aridity and chronic anthropogenic disturbance on seed dispersal by ants in Brazilian Caatinga

Annual temperature variation influences the vulnerability of montane bird communities to land‐use change

Rapid warming is associated with population decline among terrestrial birds and mammals globally

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