The future distribution of wetland birds breeding in Europe validated against observed changes in distribution
Authors
Hochachka, Wesley M
Johnston, Alison
Brommer, Jon
Keller, Verena
Aghababyan, Karen
Maxhuni, Qenan
Vintchevski, Alexandre
Nagy, Károly
Raudonikis, Liutauras
Balmer, Dawn
Noble, David
Leitão, Domingos
Shimmings, Paul
Sultanov, Elchin
Caffrey, Brian
Boyla, Kerem
Lindström, Åke
Velevski, Metodija
Pladevall, Clara
Brotons, Lluís
Karel, Šťastný
Chodkiewicz, Tomasz
Wilk, Tomasz
Szép, Tibor
van Turnhout, Chris
Foppen, Ruud
Burfield, Ian
Vikstrøm, Thomas
Mazal, Vlatka Dumbović
Eaton, Mark
Vorisek, Petr
Lehikoinen, Aleksi
Herrando, Sergi
Kuzmenko, Tatiana
Bauer, Hans-Günther
Kalyakin, Mikhail V
Voltzit, Olga V
Sjeničić, Jovica
Publication Date
2022-02-10Journal Title
Environmental Research Letters
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Volume
17
Issue
2
Language
en
Type
Other
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Soultan, A., Pavón-Jordán, D., Bradter, U., Sandercock, B. K., Hochachka, W. M., Johnston, A., Brommer, J., et al. (2022). The future distribution of wetland birds breeding in Europe validated against observed changes in distribution. [Other]. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ebe
Abstract
Abstract: Wetland bird species have been declining in population size worldwide as climate warming and land-use change affect their suitable habitats. We used species distribution models (SDMs) to predict changes in range dynamics for 64 non-passerine wetland birds breeding in Europe, including range size, position of centroid, and margins. We fitted the SDMs with data collected for the first European Breeding Bird Atlas and climate and land-use data to predict distributional changes over a century (the 1970s–2070s). The predicted annual changes were then compared to observed annual changes in range size and range centroid over a time period of 30 years using data from the second European Breeding Bird Atlas. Our models successfully predicted ca. 75% of the 64 bird species to contract their breeding range in the future, while the remaining species (mostly southerly breeding species) were predicted to expand their breeding ranges northward. The northern margins of southerly species and southern margins of northerly species, both, predicted to shift northward. Predicted changes in range size and shifts in range centroids were broadly positively associated with the observed changes, although some species deviated markedly from the predictions. The predicted average shift in core distributions was ca. 5 km yr−1 towards the north (5% northeast, 45% north, and 40% northwest), compared to a slower observed average shift of ca. 3.9 km yr−1. Predicted changes in range centroids were generally larger than observed changes, which suggests that bird distribution changes may lag behind environmental changes leading to ‘climate debt’. We suggest that predictions of SDMs should be viewed as qualitative rather than quantitative outcomes, indicating that care should be taken concerning single species. Still, our results highlight the urgent need for management actions such as wetland creation and restoration to improve wetland birds’ resilience to the expected environmental changes in the future.
Keywords
Letter, European Breeding Bird Atlas, breeding distributions, climate change, land-use change, species distribution models
Sponsorship
BiodivScen ERA ‐ Net COFUND program (2017–2018 Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA)
Identifiers
erlac4ebe, ac4ebe, erl-112571.r1
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac4ebe
This record's DOI: https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.81271
Rights
Licence:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Statistics
Total file downloads (since January 2020). For more information on metrics see the
IRUS guide.