Climate Change, Elevational Range Shifts, and Bird Extinctions

Abstract

Limitations imposed on species ranges by the climatic, ecological, and physiological effects of elevation are important determinants of extinction risk. We modeled the effects of elevational limits on the extinction risk of landbirds, 87% of all bird species. Elevational limitation of range size explained 97% of the variation in the probability of being in a World Conservation Union category of extinction risk. Our model that combined elevational ranges, four Millennium Assessment habitat-loss scenarios, and an intermediate estimate of surface warming of 2.8 degrees C, projected a best guess of 400-550 landbird extinctions, and that approximately 2150 additional species would be at risk of extinction by 2100. For Western Hemisphere landbirds, intermediate extinction estimates based on climate-induced changes in actual distributions ranged from 1.3% (1.1 degrees C warming) to 30.0% (6.4 degrees C warming) of these species. Worldwide, every degree of warming projected a nonlinear increase in bird extinctions of about 100-500 species. Only 21% of the species predicted to become extinct in our scenarios are currently considered threatened with extinction. Different habitat-loss and surface-warming scenarios predicted substantially different futures for landbird species. To improve the precision of climate-induced extinction estimates, there is an urgent need for high-resolution measurements of shifts in the elevational ranges of species. Given the accelerating influence of climate change on species distributions and conservation, using elevational limits in a tested, standardized, and robust manner can improve conservation assessments of terrestrial species and will help identify species that are most vulnerable to global climate change. Our climate-induced extinction estimates are broadly similar to those of bird species at risk from other factors, but these estimates largely involve different sets of species.

Are Swiss birds tracking climate change?

“…Estimates of elevation shifts in animal distribution due to recent climate change are still rare in the literature to allow direct comparison, particularly for birds (Parmesan, 2006;Shoo et al, 2006;Sekercioglu et al, 2008). As a first indication, the meta-analysis performed by Parmesan and Yohe (2003) over more than 1700 species of different (plant and animal) taxa documented significant upward range shifts averaging 6.1 m per decade.…”

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“…They have come to a conclusion that the vast majority of those tropical birds are sedentary, isolated ones (Sekercioglu et al 2008) and are seemingly encountered by Stott P.A. et al 2013 huge risks as backed by some researchers assuming that climate change could be the key extinction factor driving off tropical birds on the brink of extinction (Colwell et al 2008;Sekercioglu et al 2008;Hole et al 2009).…”

“…They have come to a conclusion that the vast majority of those tropical birds are sedentary, isolated ones (Sekercioglu et al 2008) and are seemingly encountered by Stott P.A. et al 2013 huge risks as backed by some researchers assuming that climate change could be the key extinction factor driving off tropical birds on the brink of extinction (Colwell et al 2008;Sekercioglu et al 2008;Hole et al 2009). However, a lack of research poses as challenges to fully measure and predict the impacts of climate change regarding other drivers of extinction including loss of habitat, invasive predators, overexploitation, and disease (Brook et al 2008;Sodhi et al 2011) and the real causes of uncertainty predicting the climate change impacts on biodiversity that differ owing to the lack of long-term empirical Araujo and Rahbek 2006 data on that regard that fails to claim its incorporation on biological processes (Araujo and Rahbek 2006;Heikkinen et al 2007;Beaumont et al 2008).…”

The avian and wildlife costs of fossil fuels and nuclear power

“…The role of climate change on bird extinctions, although indeed worrying, is not conclusive and as such should be approached with extreme caution. Studies looking at the expansion and contraction of ranges, shifts in migratory patterns, cumulative effects with other environmental threats, and predictions of 'winners' and 'losers' are only recently surfacing (see Møller et al 2004;Crick 2004;Schwartz et al 2006;Jetz et al 2007;Sekercioglu et al 2008;Gilman et al 2010 for a sample). Moreover, the author has presumed that Thomas et al's (2004) estimate of bird species extinctions can be extrapolated to the number of individuals that will perish and that those deaths will occur at a constant rate year-toyear.…”