Potential distribution of a climate sensitive species, the White-winged Snowfinch <i>Montifringilla nivalis</i> in Europe

Brambilla, Mattia; Resano‐Mayor, Jaime; Arlettaz, Raphaël; Bettega, Chiara; Binggeli, Anaïs; Bogliani, Giuseppe; Braunisch, Veronika; Celada, Claudio; Chamberlain, Dan; Carricaburu, Jules Chiffard; Delgado, María del Mar; Fontanilles, Philippe; Kmecl, Primož; Korner, Fränzi; Lindner, Robert; Pedrini, Paolo; Pöhacker, Jakob; Rubinic, Borut; Schano, Christian; Scridel, Davide; Strinella, Eliseo; Teufelbauer, Norbert; Hernando, Miguel de Gabriel

doi:10.1017/s0959270920000027

Cited by 15 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…At the study area scale, climatic variables, together with terrain roughness and elevation, appeared to be the main limiting factors for the potential distribution of alpine species. This is consistent with what has been previously recorded in alpine birds (Brambilla et al 2020), but also in other taxa such as plants (Pauli et al 2012) or insects (Wilson et al 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Warming threatens habitat suitability and breeding occupancy of rear‐edge alpine bird specialists

Hernando

Fernández-Gil²,

Roa³

et al. 2021

Ecography

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Alpine ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change. For widely distributed alpine specialists, rear‐edge populations are disproportionately important; it is expected that climate change will reduce their occupancy ranges due to the loss of suitable habitats and connectivity among them. Using four alpine bird species inhabiting the southwestern Palearctic as models, we aim to study which and how environmental factors influence habitat suitability, identify mountain areas with suitable habitat, estimate the probabilities of hosting breeding populations for these areas, and predict how habitat suitability and breeding occupancy will change under future climate scenarios. We used a species distribution modeling approach to obtain habitat suitability maps for four biological seasons and assessed the importance and effects of climatic and landscape variables for the studied species. We also assessed the probability of occupancy of potential breeding patches using available systematic distribution data, and projected our habitat suitability and occupancy models to future climate conditions. Our results indicated that the habitat suitability of rear‐edge alpine specialists was limited mainly by climatic factors, restricting their suitable areas to the highest mountains where cold climate persist. The actual occupancy of the potential breeding patches was determined by their size, landscape connectivity and habitat quality. For the period 2041–2060 we predicted a substantial reduction of suitable habitats that varied across seasons and species, and a breeding occupancy range loss that varied across mountain ranges and species. Thus, these alpine bird species, currently not considered as threatened, merit a review of their conservation status. Common distribution patterns and potentially similar responses to climatic change suggest that our findings might be applicable for other rear‐edge alpine species. Our study identified specific mountain systems where research and conservation efforts should focus for the conservation of alpine biodiversity in the southwestern Palearctic.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Warming threatens habitat suitability and breeding occupancy of rear‐edge alpine bird specialists

Hernando

Fernández-Gil²,

Roa³

et al. 2021

Ecography

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“…Given that the European atlas has a 50-km resolution and that BirdLife distribution shapefiles are meant to be used at a coarse resolution, and are therefore sometimes not accurate for mountain species (cf. Brambilla, Resano-Mayor, et al, 2020), we performed a qualitative assessment of the consistency between observed and predicted distribution. Models that correctly predict the occurrence patterns of a species over distant sites, such as other mountain regions or neighboring areas, could be considered as more reliable and useful for extrapolation over different contexts (including over different time periods) than models that perform poorly when projected outside the calibration area.…”

Section: Model Evaluationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying climate refugia for high‐elevation Alpine birds under current climate warming predictions

Brambilla

Rubolini

Appukuttan

et al. 2022

Global Change Biology

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Identifying climate refugia is key to effective biodiversity conservation under a changing climate, especially for mountain-specialist species adapted to cold conditions and highly threatened by climate warming. We combined species distribution models (SDMs) with climate forecasts to identify climate refugia for high-elevation bird species (Lagopus muta, Anthus spinoletta, Prunella collaris, Montifringilla nivalis) in the European Alps, where the ecological effects of climate changes are particularly evident and predicted to intensify.We considered future (2041-2070) conditions (SSP585 scenario, four climate models) and identified three types of refugia: (1) in-situ refugia potentially suitable under both current and future climate conditions, ex-situ refugia suitable (2) only in the future according to all future conditions, or (3) under at least three out of four future conditions. SDMs were based on a very large, high-resolution occurrence dataset (2901-12,601 independent records for each species) collected by citizen scientists. SDMs were fitted using different algorithms, balancing statistical accuracy, ecological realism and predictive/extrapolation ability. We selected the most reliable ones based on consistency between training and testing data and extrapolation over distant areas. Future predictions revealed that all species (with the partial exception of A. spinoletta) will undergo a range contraction towards higher elevations, losing 17%-59% of their current range (larger losses in L. muta). We identified ~15,000 km 2 of the Alpine region as in-situ refugia for at least three species, of which 44% are currently designated as protected areas (PAs; 18%-66% among countries). Our findings highlight the usefulness of spatially accurate data collected by citizen scientists, and the importance of model testing by extrapolating over independent areas. Climate refugia, which are only partly included within the current PAs system, should be priority sites for the conservation of Alpine high-elevation species and habitats, where habitat degradation/alteration by human activities should be prevented to ensure future suitability for alpine species.

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“…Therefore, we adopted a maximum entropy approach, as implemented in Maxent, as this method outperforms others when non-standardized data are used [42,43]. Maxent works with an occurrence-background framework, and it is essential to place background points, to mirror the environmental conditions that had been sampled with data collection (i.e., to avoid the inclusion into the background of conditions where the target species had not been found just because such conditions were not sampled) [44]. In our study, we did not have any information about the sampling efforts, so we restricted the background to the areas containing occurrence records by creating a 20 km buffer around the occurrence records, within which we randomly placed 30,000 points.…”

Section: Species Distribution Modellingmentioning

confidence: 99%

In or Out of the Checklist? DNA Barcoding and Distribution Modelling Unveil a New Species of Crocidura Shrew for Italy

et al. 2020

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The genus Crocidura (Eulipotyphla, Soricidae) is the most speciose genus amongst mammals, i.e., it includes the highest number of species. Different species are distinguished by skull morphology, which often prevents the identification of individuals in the field and limits research on these species’ ecology and biology. We combined species distribution models and molecular analyses to assess the distribution of cryptic Crocidura shrews in Italy, confirming the occurrence of the greater white-toothed shrew Crocidura russula in the northwest of the country. The molecular identification ascertained the species’ presence in two distinct Italian regions. Accordingly, species distribution modelling highlighted the occurrence of areas suitable for C. russula in the westernmost part of northern Italy. Our results confirm the role of Italy as a mammal hotspot in the Mediterranean; additionally, they also show the need to include C. russula in Italian faunal checklists. To conclude, we highlight the usefulness of combining different approaches to explore the presence of cryptic species outside their known ranges. Since the similar, smaller C. suaveolens may be displaced by the larger C. russula through competitive exclusion, the latter might be the species actually present where C. suaveolens had been reported previously. A comprehensive and detailed survey is therefore required to assess the current distribution of these species.

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Potential distribution of a climate sensitive species, the White-winged Snowfinch Montifringilla nivalis in Europe

Cited by 15 publications

References 18 publications

Warming threatens habitat suitability and breeding occupancy of rear‐edge alpine bird specialists

Warming threatens habitat suitability and breeding occupancy of rear‐edge alpine bird specialists

Identifying climate refugia for high‐elevation Alpine birds under current climate warming predictions

In or Out of the Checklist? DNA Barcoding and Distribution Modelling Unveil a New Species of Crocidura Shrew for Italy

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