Abstract
Most research on climate change impacts on global biodiversity lacks the resolution to detect changes in species abundance and is limited to temperate ecosystems. This limits our understanding of global responses in species abundance—a determinant of extinction risk and ecosystem function and services—to climate change, including in the highly biodiverse tropics. We address this knowledge gap by quantifying the abundance response of waterbirds, an indicator taxon of wetland biodiversity, to climate change at 6,822 sites between 55° S and 64° N. Using 1,303,651 count records of 390 species, we show that with temperature increase, the abundance of species and populations decreased at lower latitudes, particularly in the tropics, but increased at higher latitudes. These contrasting latitudinal responses indicate potential global-scale poleward shifts of species abundance under climate change. The negative responses to temperature increase in tropical species are of conservation concern, as they are often also threatened by other anthropogenic factors.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 959-964 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | Nature Climate Change |
| Volume | 10 |
| Early online date | 24 Aug 2020 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 31 Oct 2020 |
Funding
We thank the coordinators, thousands of volunteer counters and funders of the International Waterbird Census and Christmas Bird Count. T.A. was supported by the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, the Kenneth Miller Trust, the Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (FT180100354) and the University of Queensland strategic funding. T.S. was funded by the Royal Society (Wolfson Merit Award WM170050, APEX APX/R1/191045), the Leverhulme Trust (RF/2/RFG/2005/0279, ID200660763) and the National Research, Development and Innovation Office of Hungary (ÉLVONAL KKP-126949, K-116310). H.S.W. was supported by the Cambridge Trust Cambridge-Australia Poynton Scholarship and the Cambridge Department of Zoology JS Gardiner Fellowship. W.J.S. is supported by Arcadia and The David and Claudia Harding Foundation. This work is also funded by EU Horizon 2020 BACI project (Grant Agreement 640176), Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Environment Canada, AEWA Secretariat, EU LIFE+ NGO Operational Grant, MAVA Foundation, Swiss Federal Office for Environment and Nature, French Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, UK Department of Food and Rural Affairs, Norwegian Nature Directorate, Dutch Ministry of Economics, Agriculture and Innovation, DOB Ecology and Wetlands International members. Thanks to M. Amano for all the support.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Environmental Science (miscellaneous)
- Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
