Life in a changing world: climate change impacts on common European birds
2018
Anthropogenic climate change is predicted to be a major cause of
extinctions. Therefore, a major aim of climate change ecology is
to understand how species are being impacted and identify which
species are most at risk. However, the ability to make these
broad generalisations requires large-scale comparative analyses
based on appropriate assumptions. This thesis investigates how
European birds respond to changes in climate, the validity of
several common assumptions, and identifies which species or
populations are most at risk based on multiple long-term
datasets. Our understanding of how different responses relate and how they
affect population persistence is lacking. A conceptual
hierarchical framework is introduced in chapter one to better
understand and predict when climate-induced trait changes
(phenology or physiology) impact demographic rates (survival or
reproduction), and subsequently population dynamics. I synthesise
the literature to find hypotheses about life-history and
ecological characteristics that could predict when population
dynamics will likely be affected. An example shows that, although
earlier laying with warmer temperatures was associated with
improved reproduction, this had no apparent effect on population
trends in 35 British birds. Number of broods partly explains
which species are most at risk of temperature-induced population
declines. It is often assumed that populations within species respond
similarly to climate change, and therefore a single value will
reflect species-specific responses. Chapter two explores inter-
and intra-specific variation in body condition responses to six
climatic variables in 46 species over 21 years and 80 sites. Body
condition is sensitive to all six variables (primarily in a
non-linear way), and declines with warmer temperatures. I find
that species signals might not exist as populations of the same
species are no more alike than populations of different species.
Decreased body condition is typically assumed to have detrimental
consequences on species’ vital rates and population dynamics,
but this assumption has rarely been tested. Expanding on chapter
two, chapter three shows that temperature-induced declines in
body condition have no apparent consequences on demography and
population dynamics. Instead, temperature has strong effects on
reproductive success and population growth rates via unknown
traits and demographic rates.
Much of the literature investigating climatic impacts assumes
that temporal trends accurately reflect responses to climate
change, and therefore investigate trait changes over time. In
chapter four, I use two long-term datasets to demonstrate that,
for four different types of trait responses, trait variation
through time cannot be assumed to be due to warming.
Non-temperature causal agents are important…
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