| 1. |
- Grünwald, Jan, et al.
(författare)
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Ecological traits predict population trends of urban birds in Europe
- 2024
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Ingår i: Ecological Indicators. - 1470-160X. ; 160
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The population dynamics of urban animals has been so far remarkably understudied. At the same time, urban species’ population trends can provide important information on the consequences of environmental changes in cities. We modelled long-term population trends of 93 bird species breeding in urban areas in 16 European countries as a function of species’ traits, characterising variability in their urbanization and ecology. We found that: (i) earlier colonisers have more negative population trends than recent colonisers; (ii) more urbanized open habitat species had more positive population trends than less urbanized open habitat species; (iii) highly urbanized birds breeding above the ground had more negative trends than highly urbanized ground breeders. These patterns can be explained by several processes occurring in cities as well as outside city borders. Namely, (i) pre-industrial colonisers might struggle to persist in rapidly changing urban areas, limiting their foraging and breeding opportunities of the birds. (ii) Open habitats are under pressure of intensive agricultural exploitation in rural areas, which may negatively affect populations of less urbanized birds. In contrast, urban areas do not experience such pressure keeping the trends of urbanized open habitat species more positive. (iii) Differences in population trends between highly urbanized ground and above-ground breeders suggest that the latter may lose their breeding opportunities in modern buildings that do not provide suitable breeding sites. Our results indicate that even once successful, city dwellers may not keep pace with changes in urban areas, but these areas may also provide suitable habitats for biodiversity.
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| 2. |
- Heldbjerg, Henning, et al.
(författare)
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Contrasting population trends of common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) across Europe
- 2019
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Ingår i: Ornis Fennica. - 0030-5685. ; 96:4, s. 153-168
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The greatest loss of biodiversity in the EU has occurred on agricultural land. The Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris) is one of the many numerous and widespread European farmland breeding bird species showing major population declines linked to European agricultural intensification. Here we present results based on monitoring data collected since 1975 in 24 countries to examine the influence of changing extent of grassland and cattle abundance (based on results of earlier studies showing the importance of lowland cattle grazed grassland for the species), wintering provenance and temperature on national breeding population trends of Starlings across Europe. Positive Starling population trends in Central-East Europe contrast with negative trends in North and West Europe. Based on this indicative approach, we found some support for the importance of cattle stock and no support for grassland, temperature or wintering provenance to explain Starling population trends in Europe. However, we acknowledge such a European-wide analysis may conceal regional differences in responses and suggest that currently accessible national land use data might be insufficient to describe the detailed current changes in animal husbandry and grassland management that may be responsible for changes in food availability and hence breeding Starling abundance and their differences across Europe. Reviewing results from local studies relating Starling population trends to local agricultural change offer contradictory results, suggesting complex interacting processes at work. We recommend combining national datasets on demography, land-use/agricultural practices and from autecological research to better explain the reasons for contrasting Starling trends across Europe, to enable us to predict how changing agriculture will affect Starlings and potentially suggest mitigation measures to restore local populations where possible.
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| 3. |
- Lehikoinen, Aleksi, et al.
(författare)
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Declining population trends of European mountain birds
- 2019
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Ingår i: Global Change Biology. - : Wiley. - 1354-1013 .- 1365-2486. ; 25:2, s. 577-588
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mountain areas often hold special species communities, and they are high on the list of conservation concern. Global warming and changes in human land use, such as grazing pressure and afforestation, have been suggested to be major threats for biodiversity in the mountain areas, affecting species abundance and causing distribution shifts towards mountaintops. Population shifts towards poles and mountaintops have been documented in several areas, indicating that climate change is one of the key drivers of species’ distribution changes. Despite the high conservation concern, relatively little is known about the population trends of species in mountain areas due to low accessibility and difficult working conditions. Thanks to the recent improvement of bird monitoring schemes around Europe, we can here report a first account of population trends of 44 bird species from four major European mountain regions: Fennoscandia, UK upland, south-western (Iberia) and south-central mountains (Alps), covering 12 countries. Overall, the mountain bird species declined significantly (−7%) during 2002–2014, which is similar to the declining rate in common birds in Europe during the same period. Mountain specialists showed a significant −10% decline in population numbers. The slope for mountain generalists was also negative, but not significantly so. The slopes of specialists and generalists did not differ from each other. Fennoscandian and Iberian populations were on average declining, while in United Kingdom and Alps, trends were nonsignificant. Temperature change or migratory behaviour was not significantly associated with regional population trends of species. Alpine habitats are highly vulnerable to climate change, and this is certainly one of the main drivers of mountain bird population trends. However, observed declines can also be partly linked with local land use practices. More efforts should be undertaken to identify the causes of decline and to increase conservation efforts for these populations.
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| 4. |
- Mason, Lucy R., et al.
(författare)
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Population responses of bird populations to climate change on two continents vary with species’ ecological traits but not with direction of change in climate suitability
- 2019
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Ingår i: Climatic Change. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0165-0009 .- 1573-1480. ; 157:3-4, s. 337-354
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Climate change is a major global threat to biodiversity with widespread impacts on ecological communities. Evidence for beneficial impacts on populations is perceived to be stronger and more plentiful than that for negative impacts, but few studies have investigated this apparent disparity, or how ecological factors affect population responses to climatic change. We examined the strength of the relationship between species-specific regional population changes and climate suitability trends (CST), using 30-year datasets of population change for 525 breeding bird species in Europe and the USA. These data indicate a consistent positive relationship between population trend and CST across the two continents. Importantly, we found no evidence that this positive relationship differs between species expected to be negatively and positively impacted across the entire taxonomic group, suggesting that climate change is causing equally strong, quantifiable population increases and declines. Species’ responses to changing climatic suitability varied with ecological traits, however, particularly breeding habitat preference and body mass. Species associated with inland wetlands responded most strongly and consistently to recent climatic change. In Europe, smaller species also appeared to respond more strongly, whilst the relationship with body mass was less clear-cut for North American birds. Overall, our results identify the role of certain traits in modulating responses to climate change and emphasise the importance of long-term data on abundance for detecting large-scale species’ responses to environmental changes.
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| 5. |
- Morrison, Catriona A., et al.
(författare)
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Covariation in population trends and demography reveals targets for conservation action
- 2021
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Ingår i: Royal Society of London. Proceedings B. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 1471-2954. ; 288:1946, s. 20202955-20202955
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Wildlife conservation policies directed at common and widespread, but declining, species are difficult to design and implement effectively, as multiple environmental changes are likely to contribute to population declines. Conservation actions ultimately aim to influence demographic rates, but targeting actions towards feasible improvements in these is challenging in widespread species with ranges that encompass a wide range of environmental conditions. Across Europe, sharp declines in the abundance of migratory landbirds have driven international calls for action, but actions that could feasibly contribute to population recovery have yet to be identified. Targeted actions to improve conditions on poor-quality sites could be an effective approach, but only if local conditions consistently influence local demography and hence population trends. Using long-term measures of abundance and demography of breeding birds at survey sites across Europe, we show that co-occurring species with differing migration behaviours have similar directions of local population trends and magnitudes of productivity, but not survival rates. Targeted actions to boost local productivity within Europe, alongside large-scale (non-targeted) environmental protection across non-breeding ranges, could therefore help address the urgent need to halt migrant landbird declines. Such demographic routes to recovery are likely to be increasingly needed to address global wildlife declines.
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| 6. |
- O'Reilly, Enya, et al.
(författare)
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An assessment of relative habitat use as a metric for species’ habitat association and degree of specialization
- 2022
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Ingår i: Ecological Indicators. - : Elsevier BV. - 1470-160X. ; 135
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In order to understand species’ sensitivity to habitat change, we must correctly determine if a species is associated with a habitat or not, and if it is associated, its degree of specialization for that habitat. However, definitions of species’ habitat association and specialization are often static, categorical classifications that coarsely define species as either habitat specialists or generalists and can fail to account for potential temporal or spatial differences in association or specialization. In contrast, quantitative metrics can provide a more nuanced assessment, defining species’ habitat associations and specialization along a continuous scale and accommodate for temporal or spatial variation, but these approaches are less widely used. Here we explore relative habitat use (RHU) as a metric for quantifying species’ association with and degree of specialization for different habitat types. RHU determines the extent of a species’ association with a given habitat by comparing its abundance in that habitat relative to its mean abundance across all other habitats. Using monitoring data for breeding birds across Europe from 1998 to 2017; we calculate RHU scores for 246 species for five habitat types and compared them to the literature-based classifications of their association with and specialization for each of these habitats. We also explored the temporal variation in species’ RHU scores for each habitat and assessed how this varied according to association and degree of specialization. In general, species’ RHU and literature-derived classifications were well aligned, as RHU scores for a given habitat increased in line with reported association and specialization. In addition, temporal variation in RHU scores were influenced by association and degree of specialization, with lower scores for those associated with, and those more specialized to, a given habitat. As a continuous metric, RHU allows a detailed assessment of species’ association with and degree of specialization for different habitats that can be tailored to specific temporal and/or spatial requirements. It has the potential to be a valuable tool for identifying indicator species and in supporting the design, implementation and monitoring of conservation management actions.
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| 7. |
- Stephens, Philip A., et al.
(författare)
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Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents
- 2016
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Ingår i: Science. - : American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). - 0036-8075 .- 1095-9203. ; 352:6281, s. 84-87
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Global climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. Large-scale analyses have generally focused on the impacts of climate change on the geographic ranges of species and on phenology, the timing of ecological phenomena. We used long-term monitoring of the abundance of breeding birds across Europe and the United States to produce, for both regions, composite population indices for two groups of species: those for which climate suitability has been either improving or declining since 1980. The ratio of these composite indices, the climate impact indicator (CII), reflects the divergent fates of species favored or disadvantaged by climate change. The trend in CII is positive and similar in the two regions. On both continents, interspecific and spatial variation in population abundance trends are well predicted by climate suitability trends.
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