Effects of Global Climate Change on Birds
Town PetersonBiodiversity InstituteUniversity of Kansas
Niche Modeling and Climate Change
• Move from speculation to prediction• Objective, quantitative approaches to
anticipating climate change effects on biodiversity
• Techniques broadly applicable … understanding and anticipating biodiversity shifts, species invasions, disease risk, etc.
Abiotic niche
Biotic interactionsAccessibility
Area presenting appropriate combinations of abiotic and biotic conditions (= potential distribution)
Actual geographic distribution(abiotic and biotic conditions fulfilled,accessible to dispersers)
Timescale and Conservatism
Niche Conservatism and Climate Change• Niches are conserved across reasonable
periods of evolutionary time• Niches of species are not expected to change
over time periods as short as in the current period of “global warming”
• Therefore, we can—at least as an initial assumption—be confident that niche evolution will not be an important factor in species’ responses to current climate change
Direct climate effects
Mountains vs Flatlands
Steller’s Jay beforeSteller’s Jay afterPygmy Nuthatch beforePygmy Nuthatch after
Baird’s Sparrow beforeBaird’s Sparrow afterLesser Prairie-Chicken beforeLesser Prairie-Chicken after
Mountains vs Flatlands
Percent Change - No Dispersal
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Percent change
Freq
uenc
y
Centroid Distance - No Dispersal
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350
Distance (km)Fr
eque
ncy
Green = montane speciesBlue = flatlands species
It’s Happening …
INDirect effects via marine intrusion
Coastline Topography and Marine Intrusion
New Zealand - Coromandel Coast
South Coast New Guinea
The Americas
Global Projected Extinctions from Marine Intrusion
Global Species Losses: 181 species under the 1 m scenario 337 species under the 6 m scenario out of 18,628 current species considered
North Carolina Coast Study
• Department of Energy funding• Special opportunity because digital elevation
model resolved to 1 cm vertically for NC coast• First exploration of climate change effects on
ecosystem shifts using correlational tools
COMPOUND effects: Climate change and marine intrusion
Mexican Sheartail Doricha eliza
Joint Effects
Double whammy More species affected
Joint Effects (Preliminary)
0
20
40
60
0 20 40 60 80
Per
cent
loss
ow
ing
to in
unda
tion
Percent loss owing to climate change
Conclusions
General Geographic Expectations for Biodiversity
Species will respond in general by – moving to track appropriate conditions– adapting to new conditions– going extinct if failing both of the above
Geographic tracking will generally be – upward in elevation– poleward in latitude
BUT Species are individualistic in their responsesDispersal abilities will be key in system behaviorEffects will be more serious in flatlands systems than in montane systemsEffects will be more serious in bounded systems than in continuous/contiguous systems
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