European birds and climate change

The IPCC synthesis report concluded that “[a]nthropogenic warming could lead to some impacts that are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the climate change.” In PLoS One Brian Huntley and colleagues provide an example of such changes in the distribution and abundance of European birds. Their results are very sobering.

To project how distributions will change, Huntley and his colleagues first derive climate tolerances for each species from the current distributions of 431 species. They then use these climate tolerances to project ranges under six different climate scenarios for 2070-2099. The new center of species distributions is shifted, on average, between 160 and 550 miles (258 and 882 km), the extent of distributions is reduced by 10-30%, and local diversity descreases by 7-23%. The figure to the left shows the current and future distribution of the grasshopper warbler (Locustella naevia).

As the authors conclude, “many human activities exert pressures upon wildlife, the magnitude of the potential impacts estimated for European breeding birds emphasises the importance of climatic change. The development of adaptation strategies for biodiversity conservation in the face of climatic change is an urgent need; such strategies must take into account quantitative evidence of potential climatic change impacts such as is presented here.”