Climate‐related range shifts in Arctic‐breeding shorebirds

• Published in: Ecology and Evolution
• Main Authors: Anderson, Christine, M, Fahrig, Lenore, Rausch, Jennie, Martin, Jean‐louis, Daufresne, Tanguy, Smith, Paul, A
• Other Authors: Carleton University, Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC), Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Université de Montpellier (UM), Ecologie fonctionnelle et biogéochimie des sols et des agro-écosystèmes (UMR Eco&Sols), Centre de Coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)-Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement (INRAE)-Institut Agro Montpellier, Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro)-Institut national d'enseignement supérieur pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (Institut Agro), Environment and Climate Change Canada, Institut Polaire Francais Paul Emile Victor, Ontario Graduate Scholarship, W. Garfield Weston Foundation
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2023
• Subjects: climate tracking;global change;oleward shifts;range dynamics;Re-distribution;wader; [SDE.BE]Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and Ecology; Arctic; Foxe Basin; Nunavut
• Online Access: https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04034886; https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04034886/document; https://hal.inrae.fr/hal-04034886/file/Anderson-EE-2023-CC-BY.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.9797

International audience Aim To test whether the occupancy of shorebirds has changed in the eastern Canadian Arctic, and whether these changes could indicate that shorebird distributions are shifting in response to long-term climate change.Location Foxe Basin and Rasmussen Lowlands, Nunavut, Canada.Methods We used a unique set of observations, made 25 years apart, using general linear models to test if there was a relationship between changes in shorebird species' occupancy and their species temperature Index, a simple version of a species climate envelope.Results Changes in occupancy and density varied widely across species, with some increasing and some decreasing. This is despite that overall population trends are known to be negative for all of these species based on surveys during migration. The changes in occupancy that we observed were positively related to the species temperature index, such that the warmer-breeding species appear to be moving into these regions, while colder-breeding species appear to be shifting out of the regions, likely northward.Main Conclusions Our results suggest that we should be concerned about declining breeding habitat availability for bird species whose current breeding ranges are centered on higher and colder latitudes.