The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic
Climate change is occurring more rapidly in the Arctic than other places in the world, which is likely to alter the distribution and abundance of migratory birds breeding there. A warming climate can provide benefits to birds by decreasing spring snow cover, but increases in the frequency of summer...
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ftpubmed:oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4077800 2023-05-15T14:50:09+02:00 The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic Robinson, Barry G. Franke, Alastair Derocher, Andrew E. 2014-07-01 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4077800 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24983471 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101495 en eng Public Library of Science http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24983471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101495 This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. CC-BY Research Article Text 2014 ftpubmed https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101495 2014-07-06T01:29:46Z Climate change is occurring more rapidly in the Arctic than other places in the world, which is likely to alter the distribution and abundance of migratory birds breeding there. A warming climate can provide benefits to birds by decreasing spring snow cover, but increases in the frequency of summer rainstorms, another product of climate change, may reduce foraging opportunities for insectivorous birds. Cyclic lemming populations in the Arctic also influence bird abundance because Arctic foxes begin consuming bird eggs when lemmings decline. The complex interaction between summer temperature, precipitation, and the lemming cycle hinder our ability to predict how Arctic-breeding birds will respond to climate change. The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between annual variation in weather, spring snow cover, lemming abundance and spatiotemporal variation in the abundance of multiple avian guilds in a tundra ecosystem in central Nunavut, Canada: songbirds, shorebirds, gulls, loons, and geese. We spatially stratified our study area based on vegetation productivity, terrain ruggedness, and freshwater abundance, and conducted distance sampling to estimate strata-specific densities of each guild during the summers of 2010–2012. We also monitored temperature, rainfall, spring snow cover, and lemming abundance each year. Spatial variation in bird abundance matched what was expected based on previous ecological knowledge, but weather and lemming abundance also significantly influenced the abundance of some guilds. In particular, songbirds were less abundant during the cool, wet summer with moderate snow cover, and shorebirds and gulls declined with lemming abundance. The abundance of geese did not vary over time, possibly because benefits created by moderate spring snow cover were offset by increased fox predation when lemmings were scarce. Our study provides an example of a simple way to monitor the correlation between weather, spring snow cover, lemming abundance, and spatiotemporal ... Text Arctic Climate change Nunavut Tundra PubMed Central (PMC) Arctic Canada Nunavut PLoS ONE 9 7 e101495 |
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Research Article |
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Research Article Robinson, Barry G. Franke, Alastair Derocher, Andrew E. The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic |
topic_facet |
Research Article |
description |
Climate change is occurring more rapidly in the Arctic than other places in the world, which is likely to alter the distribution and abundance of migratory birds breeding there. A warming climate can provide benefits to birds by decreasing spring snow cover, but increases in the frequency of summer rainstorms, another product of climate change, may reduce foraging opportunities for insectivorous birds. Cyclic lemming populations in the Arctic also influence bird abundance because Arctic foxes begin consuming bird eggs when lemmings decline. The complex interaction between summer temperature, precipitation, and the lemming cycle hinder our ability to predict how Arctic-breeding birds will respond to climate change. The main objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between annual variation in weather, spring snow cover, lemming abundance and spatiotemporal variation in the abundance of multiple avian guilds in a tundra ecosystem in central Nunavut, Canada: songbirds, shorebirds, gulls, loons, and geese. We spatially stratified our study area based on vegetation productivity, terrain ruggedness, and freshwater abundance, and conducted distance sampling to estimate strata-specific densities of each guild during the summers of 2010–2012. We also monitored temperature, rainfall, spring snow cover, and lemming abundance each year. Spatial variation in bird abundance matched what was expected based on previous ecological knowledge, but weather and lemming abundance also significantly influenced the abundance of some guilds. In particular, songbirds were less abundant during the cool, wet summer with moderate snow cover, and shorebirds and gulls declined with lemming abundance. The abundance of geese did not vary over time, possibly because benefits created by moderate spring snow cover were offset by increased fox predation when lemmings were scarce. Our study provides an example of a simple way to monitor the correlation between weather, spring snow cover, lemming abundance, and spatiotemporal ... |
format |
Text |
author |
Robinson, Barry G. Franke, Alastair Derocher, Andrew E. |
author_facet |
Robinson, Barry G. Franke, Alastair Derocher, Andrew E. |
author_sort |
Robinson, Barry G. |
title |
The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic |
title_short |
The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic |
title_full |
The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic |
title_fullStr |
The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic |
title_full_unstemmed |
The Influence of Weather and Lemmings on Spatiotemporal Variation in the Abundance of Multiple Avian Guilds in the Arctic |
title_sort |
influence of weather and lemmings on spatiotemporal variation in the abundance of multiple avian guilds in the arctic |
publisher |
Public Library of Science |
publishDate |
2014 |
url |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4077800 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24983471 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101495 |
geographic |
Arctic Canada Nunavut |
geographic_facet |
Arctic Canada Nunavut |
genre |
Arctic Climate change Nunavut Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Climate change Nunavut Tundra |
op_relation |
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24983471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101495 |
op_rights |
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0101495 |
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PLoS ONE |
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9 |
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