Change in Bird Spatial Distribution in Relation to Climate Change

This topic submitted by Chelsea Nagy, Brad Shumaker ( Shumakbt@muohio.edu ) on 3/9/04 .

Global Climate Change -Western Program-Miami University

Abstract

As the general public and scientists alike become more aware of the suggested patterns and problems of global climate change, many begin to realize that not just humans will be affected in the future. We are but one of many species that will be forced to adapt to changing conditions. Those who are unable or fail to adapt will be eliminated by others who can. It is important to understand that regional changes are much more accurate and useful to examine rather than global trends. Also, when global trends are measurable the changes have already affected the regional elements in huge ways; there exists no reaction time. It is also impossible to apply these regional changes to all species within its limits. Consequently, we have chosen birds to narrow our study on how climate change affects species distribution. Birds are excellent indicators of change in spatial distribution. We will look at how different bird species distributions including factors as abundance and location have changed within the recent past and whether or not these results can be attributed to climate changes.

Introduction
Scientists have begun to study how the changes in climate are affecting a wide range of species. There have been a wide variety of groups including plants and animals, vertebrates and invertebrates, terrestrial and aquatic, and tropical and polar species that have been monitored. We have narrowed down our study from these categories and have chosen to primarily look at the effects of climate change on different species of birds. Birds are excellent indicators of climate change because effects can be seen quickly due to their mobile lifestyles as compared to more sedentary groups of species. Their migratory patterns can be tracked and their nests serve as important studies on their hatching patterns. Their phenology, or timing of life cycle events such as hatching, can indicate how climate change is affecting them. As the number of cold days change, for example, their phonological events might also change due to this. Bird experiments have been well documented worldwide and thus we feel that they are an excellent group to study in order to see how climate change can directly affect certain species’ distributions. We will look to answer the question of whether or not birds are a good indicator of climate change impacts and whether or not these studies can attribute the observed trends primarily to these causes as opposed to other compounding factors.
We plan to compile research that has been done regarding the species distributions of birds and how this relates to climate change. To begin, we will first study the known patterns of bird distribution globally and how the patterns fit with the biomes of different climatic regimes. Next, we will find studies of how these “normal or pre-climate change” patterns have changed. Specifically, we will look for regional variations between species. We will also look to examine what overall patterns can be seen with the changes in distributions. From what we have learned so far with our preliminary research, we predict that we will see many species whose distributions have shifted poleward in response to increase in temperatures. Additionally, we predict that most species will be experiencing early starts in life cycle activities such as hatching. This also can be attributed to the increase in temperature signaling the onset of spring to the birds. We expect that birds originally found in middle to high latitudes will have more visible effects because it seems that these latitudes are experiencing more of the increase in temperature. We expect to find that certain species of birds that are sensitive in their climatic conditions will be more negatively affected by climate change because of their inability to handle diverse conditions. We hope to accomplish a thorough compilation and analysis of studies of different species of birds.

Relevance
Due to the interest of many others in this and other related topics, there is a plethora of information regarding other studies similar to ours. Many have concentrated on a specific region of the world or a particular species. We will look at these and see if patterns emerge between or within species and between or within different regions. There is also a plethora of studies done regarding the spatial distribution of species in relation to specific habitats within a regional setting.
References:

Archaux, Frederic. “Breeding Upwards when Climate is Becoming Warmer: No Bird
Response in the French Alps.” Ibis. (2004). 146: 138-144.
This study included two sites in the French Alps: one in the north and one in the south. They recorded a 2.3Ą C increase in temperature in the last 30 years, yet they did not find substantial results supporting the idea that climate change would alter the altitudinal distribution of bird species here.

Beard, Karen, Nicholas Hengartner, and David Skelly. “Effectiveness of Predicting
Breeding Bird Distribution Using Probabilistic Models.” Conservation Biology.
October (1999) 13: 5. 1108-1116.
This study looked at 40 species of birds in Idaho to see if models could be made including the factors of vegetation, climate, and spatial organization to predict the distribution of these species. From their model, they could accurately predict only 60% of the species’ distributions and the null model accounted for 35% of the species distributions. Therefore while 60% is a fairly high percentage, this is not that high when compared to the null. Consequently, there needs to be much improvement on this model.

Brawn, Jeffrey, Scott Robinson, and Frank Thompson III. “The Role of Disturbance in
Ecology and Conservation of Birds.” Annual Reviews of Ecological Systems. (001)
32: 251-276.
This article explores natural disturbances and their role in the populations of certain bird species. With the suppression of these disturbances and the addition of human disturbances such as agriculture and development, they have recorded declining abundances of species.

Couvet, Denis, Frederic Jiguet, and Romain Julliard. “Common Birds Facing Global
Changes: What Makes a Species at Risk?” Global Change Biology (2003) 10,
148-154.
This article looked specifically at how the distribution of birds will be affected by global climate change and overall human disturbance. This study was conducted in Europe. They then compared these results with the patterns of butterflies.

French, D.D. and N. Picozzi. ‘Functional Groups’ of Bird Species, Biodiversity, and
Landscapes in Scotland.” Journal of Biogeography (2002) 29:231-259.
This article grouped almost all the bird species found in Scotland. They further studied season and spatial scales to address biodiversity in relation to land use patterns. They found that they were associated with strata.

Githaiga-Mwicigi, Jean, Dean Fairbanks, and Guy Midgley. “Hierarchical Processes
Define Spatial Pattern of Avian Assemblages Restricted and Endemic to the Arid
Karoo, South Africa.” Journal of Biogeography. (2002). 29:1067-1087.
This study looked at biotic and abiotic factors with regional gradients to view distributions of bird communities. They used grid cells and GIS in their methods. They could account for 85% of the variation of their models.

Gomez de Silva, Hector and Rodrigo Medellin. “Are Land Bird Assemblages
Functionally Saturated? An Empirical Test in Mexico” OIKOS (2002). 96: 169-181.
This article looked at food resources and climate as related to bird distribution in Mexico. They predicted that excess resources would be found only in extreme climates. They found that only 2 assemblages of the 77 studied had excess resources and these were the two with the lowest temperature and lowest precipitation.

MacDonald, Michael and J.B. Kirkpatrick. “Explaining Bird Species Composition and
Richness in Eucalypt-dominated Remnants in Sub-humid Tasmania.” Journal of
Biogeography (2003). 30: 1415-1426.
This study looked at the distribution of birds in fragmented agricultural landscapes in Australia. They were examining all the following factors: species, composition, richness, abundance, and diversity and their relationship with environmental variables.

Storch, David et al. “Distribution Patterns in Butterflies and Birds of the Czech Republic:
Separating Effects of Habitat and Geographical Position.” Journal of Biogeography (2003). 30: 1195-1205.
This study looked at environmental factors and geographical positions in different species. Their design included a series of gird cells in distribution atlases. They found that altitude and climate accounted for the most variance within their studies and that birds were also affected by the area of water bodies for obvious reasons.

Thuiller, Wilfried, Miguel Araujo, and Sandra Lavorel. “Do we need Land-cover data to
Model Species Distribution in Europe?” Journal of Biogeography (2004). 31: 353-361
This article looked at the influence of land-cover and climate on the distribution of 440 bird species and other organisms across Europe. They used bioclimatic models, regression of land cover and mixed models for their methods. They found that land-cover is driven primarily by climate.

Venier, L.A. et al. “Climate and Satellite-derived Land Cover for Predicting Breeding
Bird Distribution in the Great Lakes Basin.” Journal of Biogeography. (2004). 31:
315-331.
This article looked at climate and land cover to predict the distribution of 10 forest songbird species in the Great Lakes region. Overall, they found that these factors do predict the distribution of these 10 species.

http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/brd_global_change/proj_15_mig_birds.html
This website explains the finer points explaining the change in spatial distribution of several bird populations. They use four different species of bird as examples. Four different species that exist in four different areas.

http://www.gisdevelopment.net/aars/acrs/2000/ts7/gdi001.shtml
This website is a test that describes how GIS explains and quantifies Habitat Suitability Index for a bird populations given habitat area.

http://www.cnr.colostate.edu/~denis/thesis_and_dissertation/haire.html
This website discusses the relationship between bird abundance and landscape. Landscapes were described through GIS monitoring, and bird variance in spatial distribution was gathered through a separate ongoing study.

http://www.nrel.colostate.edu/brd_global_change/proj_55_prairie_birds.html
This website describes a general overview of bird distribution in the grassland region of the United States.

http://www.sdsc.edu/~ESA/bulletinimpacts.htm
This website discusses different species distributions in association with different possibly effected elements of global climate change; temp, precip, water temp, water availability.

Materials/ Methods
We will use many maps including physical geographical maps of existing biomes and species distributions as patterns have been observed (these maps are contained within many of the sources seen above). We will also attempt to make our own maps of how the distributions of respective species have changed and these patterns that have been observed. We will use different studies in our analysis to graph different species vs. tests of sensitivity, latitudinal change, or phonological changes. With these variables we can test to see if these correlations are significant indicating important results as related to climate change. We will be testing distribution data sets against these many different aspects to see if there are specific overwhelming factors that influence a change in the distribution possible leading to the conclusion that these changes are not related to climate change, but another factor.
TIMELINE:
3/8-3/12 – Reread sources and start organizing valuable information and usable maps and statistical analyses. Also find and look through data sets.
3/20-3/27- Continue looking through data sets and finalize which data sets will be used and exactly which data sets will be compared.
3/28-3/31 – create graphs from data sets
4/1-4/15 – analyze data sets and graphs. Make comparisons between graphs and draw conclusions from graphs as to which data is significant and in what relation does each have to the prospect of being effected by global climate change
4/16-forward – draw further conclusions and solidify write-up.

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