This is my twitter presentation in #BOUsci20 conference on #climatechange and abundance changes in #birds: the role of habitat quality & protection. Its essential for conservation to understand reasons of changes in species’ abundances. Thanks for invitation @IBIS_journal! 1/n
Species responses to #climatechange vary, e.g. #species distribution areas are moving towards poles and mountain tops along the changes in isoterms. This example of @newebba shows more colonisations (on blue) in the north and more extinctions (on red) on south side. 2 #BOUsci20
Locally, e.g. in #Finland, there are expansions of warm-dwelling (southern) species like #blackbird and contractions of cold-dwelling (northern) species like #brambling. Finnish land birds have moved on c 1.5 km northwards annually since 1970s: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.13150 3 #BOUsci20
Traditional #conservation of #species is based on static #protectedareas (PA) whereas species are moving their range. Review https://doi.org/10.1111/bij.12510 suggest that PAs can enhance colonisations and prevent extinctions. Role of the PA network is still poorly understood. 4 #BOUsci20
My two case study systems cover both terrestrial and aquatic #ecosystems but also both #breeding and #wintering conditions of #birds. The first examples concern #Finnish land birds. #ornithology #monitoring #data 5 #BOUsci20
#Finland has a long history of bird line transects, which is the official #breeding #bird #survey method including protected areas since 1970s coordinated by @luomus @helsinkiuni @BirdlifeSuomi @Metsahallitus. All this enables large scale long-term dataset. @_EBCC 6 #BOUsci20
We investigated long-term changes in densities of southern species at the leading edge (70 sp, red) and northern sp at trailing edge (30 sp, blue) in both inside & outside protected areas (PA). PA reliance value showed that northern sp prefer PAs but southerns don’t. 7 #BOUsci20
The southern #species include more generalists, which are not so dependent on #ProtectedAreas (PAs). However, exceptions do occur such as these five old growth #forest species. High quality PAs have had a great role in recovery of southern #WhiteBackedWoodpecker.
8 #BOUsci20
Protected areas (PAs) hold higher densities of northern species at trailing edge than areas outside. Population declines were slower inside PAs than outside. Currently PAs can slow down climate driven declines but can not fully prevent them. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.14461
9 #BOUsci20
#Boreal #forests & #mires are the most important habitats for northern #species. c 6% of forests & 14% of mires are protected in #Finland. The #ProtectedAreaNetwork is spatially biased where there are increasing protection towards less productive areas in north. 10 #BOUsci20
We investigates how the density of protected area (PA) network affects #climate driven #bird community changes in 3 areas in #Finland: north, central and south. We predicted that changes in #species community composition would decrease with increasing PA coverage.
11 #BOUsci20
The speed in the community change was measured using #CommunityTemperatureIndex, CTI, approach: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rspb.2008.0878. Positive CTI change means increasing dominance of warm-dwelling #species compared to cold-dwelling species as expected due to #climatechange. 12 #BOUsci20
We found neg. connection between community temperature index, CTI, change and protected area (PA) coverage in N & C Finland: larger & better connected PAs can slow down the #climatechange driven community changes. In south PA network too sparse to make a difference. 13 #BOUsci20
In 2nd part of my talk I will take you to the wetlands of the wintering waterbirds. Wintering waterbirds have been monitored for a long time in IWC @WetlandsInt. We compared community changes using CTI approach inside and outside protected areas since 1993. 14 #BOUsci20
Our earlier papers have shown northward shifts in wintering abundances of #waterbirds in #Europe due to #climatechange. In smew numbers have increased twice as fast inside protected areas than outside at northern range
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ddi.12855 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ddi.12300 15 #BOUsci20
#Waterbirds are expanding their winter range: warm-dwelling species faster than cold-dw species. Community Temperature Index increases twice as fast inside protected areas (PA) than outside. PA coverage advanced CTI increase on larger scale.
https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cobi.13648 16 #BOUsci20
Last I take you back to the Finland, where protected mires with ditched (blue lines) surroundings are common in S and C Finland. These old ditches outside protected areas (PAs) are still causing substantial habitat loss and degradation inside PAs. #biodiversityloss
17 #BOUsci20
The historical ditching has been uniquely strong in Finland. Reopening of the old ones is still common. The length of all ditches in Finland is about 3,5 times the distance from the earth and the moon. Overall c. 5 M hectares (c. 50% of all mires) have been ditched.
18 #BOUsci20
Long-term monitoring data demonstrates that #mire #birds are in trouble in #Finland and numbers have been declining for decades. Overall the situation of the mire birds in North Europe is the poorest in #Finland. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0006320717305037?via%3Dihub
19 #BOUsci20
Nutrient flow from ditched mires have similar eutrophication effects as nutrient flow from farmland areas affecting water quality of lakes and the Baltic Sea. #Climatechange will increase rainfall likely leading to increased nutrient flow. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0048969717319149
20 #BOUsci20
Overeutrophication has consequences to #bird populations. Breeding #waterbirds species that prefer naturally eutrophicated #wetlands have declined due to e.g. changes in #plant, #invertebrate and #fish communities. …https://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acv.12226?campaign=wolearlyview
21 #BOUsci20
Worring news have been noted by politicians and management actions inc #restoration are currently taken place. Conflict between #biodiversity and #climate need to be taken seriously: methane emissions due to #mire restoration will increase green house gas emissions.
22 #BOUsci20
Each country and region has own biodiversity problems and our task as researchers is to find out what are the most cost-efficient #biodiversity and #climate friendly #management actions to increase the impact. @ConservEvidence
23 #BOUsci20
Protected areas (PA) and habitat quality outside PAs affect speed of climate driven abundance shifts.
We need to understand processes on landscape level in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Monitoring of #birds & management is needed to learn best practices
24 #BOUsci20
Thank you wonderful young scientist: @and_san_vult @DPavonJordan @LehikoinenPepe, Sara Fraixedas, Maria Tiusanen and Elie Gaget, collaborators e.g. @WetlandsInt @BirdlifeSuomi @Metsahallitus @UniTurku and funders @SuomenAkatemia @luomus @helsinkiuni 25 #BOUsci20
You can follow @AksuLehikoinen.
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