Cargando…
Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts
Unravelling the environmental factors driving species distribution and abundance is crucial in ecology and conservation. Both climatic and land cover factors are often used to describe species distribution/abundance, but their interrelations have been scarcely investigated. Climatic factors may inde...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2021
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8647716/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34950536 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12560 |
_version_ | 1784610656182337536 |
---|---|
author | Ceresa, Francesco Kranebitter, Petra S. Monrós, Juan Rizzolli, Franco Brambilla, Mattia |
author_facet | Ceresa, Francesco Kranebitter, Petra S. Monrós, Juan Rizzolli, Franco Brambilla, Mattia |
author_sort | Ceresa, Francesco |
collection | PubMed |
description | Unravelling the environmental factors driving species distribution and abundance is crucial in ecology and conservation. Both climatic and land cover factors are often used to describe species distribution/abundance, but their interrelations have been scarcely investigated. Climatic factors may indeed affect species both directly and indirectly, e.g., by influencing vegetation structure and composition. We aimed to disentangle the direct and indirect effects (via vegetation) of local temperature on bird abundance across a wide elevational gradient in the European Alps, ranging from montane forests to high-elevation open areas. In 2018, we surveyed birds by using point counts and collected fine-scale land cover and temperature data from 109 sampling points. We used structural equation modelling to estimate direct and indirect effects of local climate on bird abundance. We obtained a sufficient sample for 15 species, characterized by a broad variety of ecological requirements. For all species we found a significant indirect effect of local temperatures via vegetation on bird abundance. Direct effects of temperature were less common and were observed in seven woodland/shrubland species, including only mountain generalists; in these cases, local temperatures showed a positive effect, suggesting that on average our study area is likely colder than the thermal optimum of those species. The generalized occurrence of indirect temperature effects within our species set demonstrates the importance of considering both climate and land cover changes to obtain more reliable predictions of future species distribution/abundance. In fact, many species may be largely tracking suitable habitat rather than thermal niches, especially among homeotherm organisms like birds. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8647716 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-86477162021-12-22 Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts Ceresa, Francesco Kranebitter, Petra S. Monrós, Juan Rizzolli, Franco Brambilla, Mattia PeerJ Ecology Unravelling the environmental factors driving species distribution and abundance is crucial in ecology and conservation. Both climatic and land cover factors are often used to describe species distribution/abundance, but their interrelations have been scarcely investigated. Climatic factors may indeed affect species both directly and indirectly, e.g., by influencing vegetation structure and composition. We aimed to disentangle the direct and indirect effects (via vegetation) of local temperature on bird abundance across a wide elevational gradient in the European Alps, ranging from montane forests to high-elevation open areas. In 2018, we surveyed birds by using point counts and collected fine-scale land cover and temperature data from 109 sampling points. We used structural equation modelling to estimate direct and indirect effects of local climate on bird abundance. We obtained a sufficient sample for 15 species, characterized by a broad variety of ecological requirements. For all species we found a significant indirect effect of local temperatures via vegetation on bird abundance. Direct effects of temperature were less common and were observed in seven woodland/shrubland species, including only mountain generalists; in these cases, local temperatures showed a positive effect, suggesting that on average our study area is likely colder than the thermal optimum of those species. The generalized occurrence of indirect temperature effects within our species set demonstrates the importance of considering both climate and land cover changes to obtain more reliable predictions of future species distribution/abundance. In fact, many species may be largely tracking suitable habitat rather than thermal niches, especially among homeotherm organisms like birds. PeerJ Inc. 2021-12-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8647716/ /pubmed/34950536 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12560 Text en © 2021 Ceresa et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited. |
spellingShingle | Ecology Ceresa, Francesco Kranebitter, Petra S. Monrós, Juan Rizzolli, Franco Brambilla, Mattia Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts |
title | Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts |
title_full | Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts |
title_fullStr | Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts |
title_full_unstemmed | Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts |
title_short | Disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts |
title_sort | disentangling direct and indirect effects of local temperature on abundance of mountain birds and implications for understanding global change impacts |
topic | Ecology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8647716/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34950536 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12560 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT ceresafrancesco disentanglingdirectandindirecteffectsoflocaltemperatureonabundanceofmountainbirdsandimplicationsforunderstandingglobalchangeimpacts AT kranebitterpetra disentanglingdirectandindirecteffectsoflocaltemperatureonabundanceofmountainbirdsandimplicationsforunderstandingglobalchangeimpacts AT smonrosjuan disentanglingdirectandindirecteffectsoflocaltemperatureonabundanceofmountainbirdsandimplicationsforunderstandingglobalchangeimpacts AT rizzollifranco disentanglingdirectandindirecteffectsoflocaltemperatureonabundanceofmountainbirdsandimplicationsforunderstandingglobalchangeimpacts AT brambillamattia disentanglingdirectandindirecteffectsoflocaltemperatureonabundanceofmountainbirdsandimplicationsforunderstandingglobalchangeimpacts |