Short-term response to the North Atlantic Oscillation but no long-term effects of climate change on the reproductive success of an alpine bird

• Published in: Journal of Ornithology
• Main Authors: Barnagaud, Jean-Yves, Crochet, Pierre André, Magnani, Yann, Bernard Laurent, Ariane, Menoni, Emmanuel, Novoa, Claude, Gimenez, Olivier
• Other Authors: Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CEFE), Université Paul-Valéry - Montpellier 3 (UPVM)-Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA)-Centre international d'études supérieures en sciences agronomiques (Montpellier SupAgro)-École Pratique des Hautes Études (EPHE), Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Sciences et Lettres (PSL)-Université de Montpellier (UM)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD France-Sud )-Institut national d’études supérieures agronomiques de Montpellier (Montpellier SupAgro), Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: HAL CCSD 2010
• Subjects: Climate packages; Galliforms; Mountain avifauna; NAO; Reproductive success; North Atlantic; North Atlantic oscillation
• Online Access: https://hal.science/hal-00652643; https://hal.science/hal-00652643/document; https://hal.science/hal-00652643/file/PEER_stage2_10.1007%252Fs10336-010-0623-8.pdf; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-010-0623-8

International audience Deciphering the effects of climatic conditions on population dynamics is of major importance in understanding how organisms are likely to be affected by climate changes. Using data from broad-scale annual censuses between 1990 and 2007, we show that winter and summer North Atlantic Oscillations affect several breeding success indicators of the Black Grouse () in the French Alps. We did not find any trend in hen counts or breeding indexes over the study period. Surprisingly for a bird specialised in cold climates, we show that Black Grouse optimise their reproductive output for positive values of the winter NAO corresponding to the average NAO index of the last 30 years. Extreme NAO values lead to lower breeding success, indicating that the grouse may be more able to track trends in climate than an increase in the frequency of extreme years. Our result show that, at least from a short-term perspective, Black Grouse productivity is not threatened by a trend towards warmer climatic conditions in the Alps, but may be affected by an increased frequency of extreme years. We advocate the use of the NAO as a climate proxy rather than using heavily noised and biased local climate descriptors in studies focusing on the global response to climate over a large spatial scale.