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Birds are not able to adapt sufficiently fast to climate warming

Written by Thomas Hesselberg

Monday, 27 October 2008

Birds cannot adequately track the climate change. Here the wren (Troglodytes troglodytes). Photo by Robert Lorch - Wikimedia Commons.

French researchers have analysed data on breeding location for a range of bird species. They found that although birds adapt to increases in temperature by moving northward they do so at a speed insufficient to match the consequences of climate warming.

In the past year it has become evident that the current degree of climate change is having a significant impact on species composition and distribution for many taxonomic groups and in many different habitats world wide. One of the best studied groups in this respect is the birds, where several studies show that climate change results in changes of behaviour and distribution as well as changes in time of egg-laying and migration.

Now a team of biologists from the French National Museum of Natural History has used extensive breeding survey data, which covers the whole of France, in order to compare the shift in species distribution with changes in temperature. They used the species temperature index (STI), an index that gives the long term average temperature that a species is exposed to across its range. The STI for each species was then used to calculate the community temperature index (CTI) for groups of birds living in the same habitat. Finally they used correlated the CTI to geographic location within France and the change of temperature.

As expected the scientists found a significant decrease in CTI from south to north, but they also found an overall increase in CTI. This data was used to calculate a northward shift in species composition of 5 km per year for the 17 year period of the study. However, in the past 18 years the temperature in France has risen in a way that corresponds to a northward shift in climate of 15 km per year.

Thus, although birds clearly adapt to the changes in temperature by moving northwards, they are not capable of changing their distribution fast enough to match climate warming. Thus if the current warming continues, some birds face local or even global extinction.

Source
Devictor, V., Julliard, R., Couvet, D. and Jiguet, F. (2008). Birds are tracking climate warming, but not fast enough. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. B. 275, 2743-2748.

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