Birds’ responses to climate change

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By Montague H. C. Neate-Clegg, Benjamin A. Tonelli & Morgan W. Tingley, Nature, Ecology & Evolution. 

 Abstract: Terrestrial species can respond to a warming climate in multiple ways, including shifting in space (via latitude or elevation) and time (via phenology). ...we used two continental-scale monitoring databases to estimate trends in the breeding latitude (311 species), elevation (251 species) and phenology (111 species) of North American landbirds over 27 years, with a shared pool of 102 species. ...Species shifted poleward (1.1 km per year, mean shift ratio 11%) and to higher elevations (1.2 m per year, mean shift ratio 17%), while also shifting their breeding phenology earlier (0.08 days per year, mean shift ratio 28%). These general trends belied substantial variation among species, with some species shifting faster than climate, whereas others shifted more slowly or in the opposite direction. Across the three dimensions (n = 102), birds cumulatively tracked temperature at 33% of current warming rates, 64% of which was driven by advances in breeding phenology as opposed to geographical shifts. A narrow focus on spatial dimensions of climate tracking may underestimate the responses of birds to climate change; phenological shifts may offer an alternative for birds—and probably other organisms—to conserve their thermal niche in a warming world. 

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