Species’ ecological traits correlate with predicted climatically-induced shifts of European breeding ranges in birds

Climatically induced shifts of species’ geographic ranges can provide important information about the potential future assembly of ecological communities. Surprisingly, interspecific variability in the magnitude and direction of these range shifts in birds has been the subject of few scientific studies, and a more detailed examination of species’ ecological traits related to this variability is needed. Using maps in the Climatic Atlas of European Breeding Birds (Huntley et al. 2007) we calculated the potential shifts of European breeding ranges in 298 bird species, and explored their relationships with breeding habitat, dietary niche, migration strategy, life history and geographic position of the current breeding range. Breeding habitat type showed the strongest relationship with the potential range shifts, with forest and wetland species showing the largest magnitude of shift. At the same time, ecological specialists showed a larger magnitude of shifts than generalists. In addition, we found that species with current ranges situated near continental borders and species with lower migratory capacity are more limited in their potential to shift due to climate change. Our analyses thus indicate which ecological groups of birds will be most likely forced to move their ranges under predicted climate change. This knowledge can help to adopt proper conservation actions. These actions will be particularly important in the case of specialist species, which have been shown to be the most sensitive to climate change impacts

A comparison of point counts with a new acoustic sampling method: a case study of a bird community from the montane forests of Mount Cameroon

Acoustic signals are frequently used for estimating avian species richness, abundance and community composition. However, sampling by traditional methods of bird surveys is often limited by availability of experienced researchers in the field, especially in the tropics. New bioacoustic approaches offer some solutions to such limitations and provide opportunities for more extensive spatial and temporal sampling. In our study, we compared results of traditional point counts with simultaneous acoustic samples obtained by automated soundscape recording units in the montane forest of Mount Cameroon. We showed that the estimates of species richness, abundance and community composition based on point counts and post-hoc laboratory listening to acoustic samples are very similar, especially for a distance limited up to 50 m. Species that were frequently missed during both point counts and listening to acoustic samples were typically those with relatively quiet songs. Abundances were rather underestimated by listening to acoustic samples in the most abundant species, including those occurring in flocks and species with low singing activity. Despite some possible biases, we demonstrated that the method based on listening to acoustic samples is relatively effective and offers a useful alternative approach for surveying Afromontane bird communities.Keywords: abundance, automatic recording units, montane forest, point count, species richness, species turnove