Dataset Information

Recent phenological shifts of migratory birds at a Mediterranean spring stopover site: Species wintering in the Sahel advance passage more than tropical winterers.

ABSTRACT: Spring migration phenology is shifting towards earlier dates as a response to climate change in many bird species. However, the patterns of change might not be the same for all species, populations, sex and age classes. In particular, patterns of change could differ between species with different ecology. We analyzed 18 years of standardized bird capture data at a spring stopover site on the island of Ponza, Italy, to determine species-specific rates of phenological change for 30 species following the crossing of the Mediterranean Sea. The advancement of spring passage was more pronounced in species wintering in Northern Africa (i.e. short-distance migrants) and in the Sahel zone. Only males from species wintering further South in the forests of central Africa advanced their passage, with no effect on the overall peak date of passage of the species. The migration window on Ponza broadened in many species, suggesting that early migrants within a species are advancing their migration more than late migrants. These data suggest that the cues available to the birds to adjust departure might be changing at different rates depending on wintering location and habitat, or that early migrants of different species might be responding differently to changing conditions along the route. However, more data on departure time from the wintering areas are required to understand the mechanisms underlying such phenological changes.

SUBMITTER: Maggini I

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7500615 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Recent phenological shifts of migratory birds at a Mediterranean spring stopover site: Species wintering in the Sahel advance passage more than tropical winterers.

Maggini Ivan I Cardinale Massimiliano M Sundberg Jonas Hentati JH Spina Fernando F Fusani Leonida L

PloS one 20200918 9

Spring migration phenology is shifting towards earlier dates as a response to climate change in many bird species. However, the patterns of change might not be the same for all species, populations, sex and age classes. In particular, patterns of change could differ between species with different ecology. We analyzed 18 years of standardized bird capture data at a spring stopover site on the island of Ponza, Italy, to determine species-specific rates of phenological change for 30 species followi ...[more]

PMID: 32946519

Similar Datasets

Project description:Long-distance migration in birds is relatively well studied in nature; however, one aspect of this phenomenon that remains poorly understood is the pattern of distribution presented by species during arrival to and establishment of wintering areas. Some studies suggest that the selection of areas in winter is somehow determined by climate, given its influence on both the distribution of bird species and their resources. We analyzed whether different migrant passerine species of North America present climatic preferences during arrival to and departure from their wintering areas. We used ecological niche modeling to generate monthly potential climatic distributions for 13 migratory bird species during the winter season by combining the locations recorded per month with four environmental layers. We calculated monthly coefficients of climate variation and then compared two GLM (generalized linear models), evaluated with the AIC (Akaike information criterion), to describe how these coefficients varied over the course of the season, as a measure of the patterns of establishment in the wintering areas. For 11 species, the sites show nonlinear patterns of variation in climatic preferences, with low coefficients of variation at the beginning and end of the season and higher values found in the intermediate months. The remaining two species analyzed showed a different climatic pattern of selective establishment of wintering areas, probably due to taxonomic discrepancy, which would affect their modeled winter distribution. Patterns of establishment of wintering areas in the species showed a climatic preference at the macroscale, suggesting that individuals of several species actively select wintering areas that meet specific climatic conditions. This probably gives them an advantage over the winter and during the return to breeding areas. As these areas become full of migrants, alternative suboptimal sites are occupied. Nonrandom winter area selection may also have consequences for the conservation of migratory bird species, particularly under a scenario of climate change.

Project description:Shifts in the timing of bird migration have been associated with climatic change and species traits. However, climatic change does not affect all species or geographic locations equally. Climate in the Pacific Northwest has shifted during the last century with mean temperatures increasing by 1 °C but little change in total annual precipitation. Few long-term data on migration phenology of birds are available in the Pacific Northwest. We analyzed trends in spring arrival dates from a site in the Oregon Coast Range where nearly daily inventories of birds were conducted in 24 of 29 years. Several species showed statistically significant shifts in timing of first spring arrivals. Six of 18 species occur significantly earlier now than during the initial phase of the study. One species arrives significantly later. Eleven show no significant shifts in timing. We associated trends in spring migration phenology with regional climatic variables, weather (precipitation and temperature), traits of species such as migration strategy, foraging behavior, diet, and habitat use, and regional trends in abundance as indexed by Breeding Bird Survey data. We found no set of variables consistently correlated with avian phenological changes. Post hoc analyses of additional climate variables revealed an association of migratory arrival dates across the 18 species with rainfall totals in northern California, presumably indicating that songbird arrival dates in Oregon are slowed by spring storm systems in California. When only the six species with the most strongly advancing arrival dates were analyzed, winter maximum temperatures in the preceding three winters appeared consistently in top models, suggesting a possible role for food availability early in spring to promote the survival and successful reproduction of the earliest-arriving birds. However, additional data on food availability and avian survival and reproductive success are required to test that hypothesis. Despite the appearance of some climate variables in top models, there remains a mismatch between strongly advancing arrival dates in some songbirds and a lack of clear directional change in those climate variables. We conclude that either some previously unrecognized variable or combination of variables has affected the timing of migration in some species but not others, or the appearance of statistically significant directional changes over time can occur without being driven by consistent environmental or species-specific factors.

Project description:There are wide reports of advances in the timing of spring migration of birds over time and in relation to rising temperatures, though phenological responses vary substantially within and among species. An understanding of the ecological, life-history and geographic variables that predict this intra- and interspecific variation can guide our projections of how populations and species are likely to respond to future climate change. Here, we conduct phylogenetic meta-analyses addressing slope estimates of the timing of avian spring migration regressed on (i) year and (ii) temperature, representing a total of 413 species across five continents. We take into account slope estimation error and examine phylogenetic, ecological and geographic predictors of intra- and interspecific variation. We confirm earlier findings that on average birds have significantly advanced their spring migration time by 2·1 days per decade and 1·2 days °C-1 . We find that over time and in response to warmer spring conditions, short-distance migrants have advanced spring migratory phenology by more than long-distance migrants. We also find that larger bodied species show greater advance over time compared to smaller bodied species. Our results did not reveal any evidence that interspecific variation in migration response is predictable on the basis of species' habitat or diet. We detected a substantial phylogenetic signal in migration time in response to both year and temperature, suggesting that some of the shifts in migratory phenological response to climate are predictable on the basis of phylogeny. However, we estimate high levels of species and spatial variance relative to phylogenetic variance, which is consistent with plasticity in response to climate evolving fairly rapidly and being more influenced by adaptation to current local climate than by common descent. On average, avian spring migration times have advanced over time and as spring has become warmer. While we are able to identify predictors that explain some of the true among-species variation in response, substantial intra- and interspecific variation in migratory response remains to be explained.

Dataset Information

Recent phenological shifts of migratory birds at a Mediterranean spring stopover site: Species wintering in the Sahel advance passage more than tropical winterers.

Publications

Recent phenological shifts of migratory birds at a Mediterranean spring stopover site: Species wintering in the Sahel advance passage more than tropical winterers.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets