RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Trait Correlates of Climatic Niche Tracking in British Birds
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 103507
DO 10.1101/103507
A1 Giovanni Rapacciuolo
A1 Robert A. Robinson
A1 Simon Gillings
A1 Andy Purvis
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/01/26/103507.abstract
AB Growing evidence indicates that species respond idiosyncratically when exposed to the same changes in climate. As a result, understanding the potential influence of biological traits on species’ distributional responses is a research priority. Yet, empirical support for hypothesised influences of traits on climate change responses remains equivocal.In this paper, we developed a novel approach to determine whether biological traits predict the degree of climatic niche tracking of British breeding birds in response to recent climate change. First, we quantified how well predicted positive and negative changes in probability of presence from climate-based species distribution models agreed with observed local gains and losses in species’ occupancy – our measure of climatic niche tracking. Second, we examined whether the degree of climatic niche tracking could be predicted by species’ ecological and life-history traits, as well as phylogenetic relationships.Overall, British breeding birds displayed a low degree of climatic niche tracking over the period of our study, though this varied substantially among species. Models incorporating traits and phylogeny explained a low proportion of the variation in climatic niche tracking. Nevertheless, we did find statistical evidence that species with lower lifespans tracked their climatic niches more closely, whilst species with a mixed diet displayed a lower degree of climatic niche tracking.We present here a tractable approach for quantifying the degree to which observed local range gains and losses can be related to climate redistribution and apply it to British breeding birds. Although we do not find strong evidence that traits predict the degree of climatic niche tracking, we discuss why this is likely to be a consequence of the features of our study system rather than the approach itself. We believe this approach may prove to be useful as datasets of temporal changes in species distributions become increasingly available.