Wed, Aug 04, 2021:On Demand
Background/Question/Methods
The impacts of climate change on biodiversity are likely to be felt across a wide range of ecosystems, but different communities are likely to respond to climate change in disparate ways because a wide range of environmental factors might influence species’ vulnerabilities to climate change. Land cover composition and fragmentation are thought to influence the way in which biodiversity responds to climate change, but studies that explore the combined impacts of land cover and climate change are rare. Here, I investigate the joint impacts of landscape fragmentation and climate change on avian community composition across regional and continental scales. I use long-term records of avian occurrence from New York State Breeding Bird Atlas and North American Breeding Bird Survey to quantify temporal dissimilarity and turnover in avian community composition.
Results/Conclusions I find that the relationship between change in avian community composition and changes in climatic conditions was affected by the level of landscape fragmentation. Specifically, I find strong and positive associations between temporal turnover in community composition and climatic change in contiguous and unfragmented regions, and weaker associations in regions with prevalent habitat fragmentation. This suggests that avian communities in fragmented landscapes might be more resilient to changing climatic conditions than communities found in contiguous habitats. I attribute this to the fact that communities of fragmented landscapes are comprised of species with wider thermal niches and thus are less susceptible to shifts in climatic variability. I conclude that highly fragmented regions are likely to undergo less pronounced changes in composition and structure of faunal communities as a result of climate change, whereas those changes are likely to be greater in contiguous and unfragmented habitats.
Results/Conclusions I find that the relationship between change in avian community composition and changes in climatic conditions was affected by the level of landscape fragmentation. Specifically, I find strong and positive associations between temporal turnover in community composition and climatic change in contiguous and unfragmented regions, and weaker associations in regions with prevalent habitat fragmentation. This suggests that avian communities in fragmented landscapes might be more resilient to changing climatic conditions than communities found in contiguous habitats. I attribute this to the fact that communities of fragmented landscapes are comprised of species with wider thermal niches and thus are less susceptible to shifts in climatic variability. I conclude that highly fragmented regions are likely to undergo less pronounced changes in composition and structure of faunal communities as a result of climate change, whereas those changes are likely to be greater in contiguous and unfragmented habitats.