Thermal niche predicts recent changes in range size for bird species

Abstract

Species distributions are strongly affected by climate, and climate change is largely impacting on species and populations. Thermal niches have been widely used as proxies for estimating thermal sensitivity of species and have been frequently related to community composition, population trends and latitudinal/elevational shifts in distribution. To our knowledge, no work has yet explored the relationship between thermal niche and change in range size (changes in the number of occupied spatial units over time) in bird species. In this paper, we related a 30 years change in range size to Species Thermal Index (STI: average temperature at occurrence sites) and to other factors (i.e. birds' associated habitats, body mass, hunting status) potentially affecting bird populations/range size. We analysed trends of breeding birds range in Italy for a suite of poorly studied cold-adapted animals potentially sensitive to global warming, and a related group of control species taxonomically similar and with comparable mass but mainly occurring at lower/warmer sites. We found a strong positive correlation between change in range size and STI, confirming that recent climatic warming has favoured species of warmer climates and adversely affected species occupying colder areas. A model including STI and birds' associated habitats was only marginally less supported, with forest species performing better than alpine open habitat and agricultural ones. In line with previous works highlighting effects of recent climate change on community composition, species' population trends and on poleward/upward distributional shifts, we found STI to be the most important predictor of change in range size variation in breeding birds.

Past and future impact of climate change on foraging habitat suitability in a high-alpine bird species: Management options to buffer against global warming effects

“…Climate change can threaten Alpine species to such an extent that the large-scale distribution of species like the snowfinch could shrink considerably (Brambilla et al, 2017a;Maggini et al, 2014). Our study demonstrates a high sensitivity of the snowfinch towards climate-induced alteration of microhabitat conditions, notably in snow cover and sward, shedding light on the possible mechanistic causes behind the ongoing range contraction of this and other cold-loving species (Scridel et al, 2017) . Warming climate induces both an anticipation of the seasonal timing of snowmelt (Klein et al, 2016) and an earlier and faster grass growth at high elevations (Theurillat and Guisan, 2001), which affects the snowfinch as well as other elements of Alpine biocenoses (Pettorelli et al, 2007).…”

Circannual variation in habitat use of the White‐winged SnowfinchMontifringilla nivalis nivalis

“…However, a strict correlation exists between temperature and elevation, so that the preference for high elevations exhibited by Snowfinches throughout the year suggests that they select areas with lower temperatures. Given the important role that climatic variables play in mountain ecosystems (Catalan et al 2017), reproductive phenology (Martin & Wiebe 2004), ecotypic responses (Delgado et al 2019) and range size (Scridel et al 2017) of cold‐adapted species, it would be interesting to investigate their role in habitat use more thouroughly, especially during the non‐breeding season.…”

Butterfly distribution along altitudinal gradients: temporal changes over a short time period

“…Nevertheless, data usually concern plants (e.g. Grabherr et al 1994;Pauli et al 2001;Vittoz et al 2008aVittoz et al , 2008b, or birds (Popy et al 2010;Scridel et al 2017), with very little information regarding other taxonomic groups, and mainly concerning changes in the distribution of single species (e.g., Battisti et al 2005).…”