Climate change indirectly reduces breeding frequency of a mobile species through changes in food availability

Abstract

Trends of environmental change are influencing the behavior of many species across the world, while highly mobile species are disproportionately impacted by climate change and human modification. Here, we investigate the mechanisms behind climate change effects on the reproductive traits of highly mobile, West Australian bird taxa, the forest red‐tailed black cockatoo Calyptorhynchus banksii naso (FRTBC). Using a dataset of annual breeding frequency spanning 19 yr, in combination with hydrological, climatological, and remotely sensed data, we modeled the effects of environmental variation on the annual breeding frequency of FRTBCs. We found several significant relationships between annual breeding frequency of FRTBCs and environmental variation. While the model, which included a proxy for the availability of the cockatoo's primary food source and the previous season's rain, explained 49% of annual breeding frequency, there were also direct and indirect effects of heatwaves and forest productivity. Forest red‐tailed black cockatoo breeding appears to be linked to the spatiotemporal availability of its primary food sources, the fruit from the tree species, marri Corymbia calophylla and jarrah Eucalyptus marginata. However, Western Australia is experiencing significant climate change, with increases in temperature and declines in rainfall altering the phenologies of these species, while declining rainfall is affecting the vegetation structure of the region. As drought events and temperatures are anticipated to increase over the region, it is expected that the food resources during the breeding season for cockatoos will become increasingly limited in time and space, thus threatening the persistence of this iconic species. This scenario is likely to be representative of many other situations where wide‐ranging species rely on patchy food resources in a changing environment. As global biodiversity is increasingly threatened, this study presents timely evidence illustrating how climate change is affecting the persistence of a threatened, mobile species, and what the implications are for mobile species around the world.

Using a social-ecological system approach to enhance understanding of structural interconnectivities within the beekeeping industry for sustainable decision making

“…Extensive agriculture and urbanization have resulted in the removal of nearly 80% of the extent of native vegetation in southwest WA since 1910 (Phillips et al 2010, Andrich and Imberger 2013, Shedley et al 2018. Land clearing has likely contributed to reduced precipitation (Pitman et al 2004, Andrich andImberger 2013) and altered groundwater levels (Dawes et al 2012), which have adversely affected the biodiversity of the region (Brouwers et al 2013, Mastrantonis et al 2019. The declining trend in precipitation since 1970 is projected to continue into the future (Hughes 2011, Smith and Power 2014, Pettit et al 2015, which has implications for survival and distribution of forage resources.…”

Estimating the Impact of Biodiversity Loss in a Marine Antarctic Food Web

“…There are many biotic and abiotic factors-ultimately associated with climate changethat can cause species extinction (e.g., changes in temperature, temporal mismatch between interacting species, freshwater scarcity, etc. ); however, changes in biotic interactions that lead to a variation in food availability are one of the most evident factors [6][7][8]. Furthermore, since every species is functionally unique, the risk of a species becoming extinct will also depend on different biological and ecological species traits, such as body size, habitat type and diet breadth [9].…”