Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Informing conservation by identifying range shift patterns across breeding habitats and migration strategies

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Biodiversity and Conservation Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

A species distribution combines the resources and climatic tolerances that allow an individual or population to persist. As these conditions change, one mechanism to maintain favorable resources is for an organism to shift its range. Much of the research examining range shifts has focused on dynamic distribution boundaries wheras the role of species breeding habitat or migration strategies on shift tendencies has received less attention. We expand on previous research by using a large suite of avian species (i.e., 277), analyzing observed abundance-weighted average latitudes, and categorizing species by breeding environment and migration strategy. We used the North American Breeding Bird Survey dataset to address two questions: (1) Has the center of observed abundance for individual species shifted latitudinally? (2) Is there a relationship between migration strategy or breeding habitat and range shifts? Results indicate the majority of species have experienced poleward range shifts over the last 43 years, and birds breeding in all habitat showed trends of poleward shift but only those species breeding in scrub-shrub and grassland environments were different from zero. Additionally, species that are short distance migrants are experiencing significant poleward shifts while Neotropical and permanent residents had shifts that were not different from zero. Our findings do support the general trend expected from climate driven changes (i.e., > 52 % shifting poleward), however, the proportion of species exhibiting equatorial shifts (24 %) or no significant shifts (23 %) illustrates the complex interplay between land cover, climate, species interactions, and other forces that can interact to influence breeding ranges over time. Regardless of the mechanisms driving range shifts, our findings emphasize the need for connecting and expanding habitats for those species experiencing range shifts. This research describes the patterns of breeding birds through central North America and we encourage future research to focus on the mechanisms driving these patterns.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Albright TP, Pidgeon AM, Rittenhouse CD, Clayton MK, Flather CH, Culbert PD, Wardlow BD, Radeloff VC (2010) Effects of drought on avian community structure. Glob Change Biol 16:2158–2170

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Angert AL, Crozier LG, Rissler LJ, Gilman SE, Tewskbury JJ, Chunco AJ (2011) Do species’ traits predict recent shifts at expanding range edges? Ecol Lett 14:677–689

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Archaux F (2004) Breeding upwards when climate is becoming warmer: no bird response in the French Alps. Ibis 146:138–144

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bertin RI (2008) Plant phenology and distribution in relation to recent climate change. J Torrey Bot Soc. 135:126–146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Both C, Visser ME (2001) Adjustment to climate change is constrained by arrival date in a long-distance migrant bird. Nature 411:296–298

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Brennan LA, Kuvlesky WP Jr (2005) North American grassland birds: and unfolding conservation crisis. J Wildl Manag 69:1–13

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen I-C, Hill JK, Ohlemüller R, Roy DB, Thomas CD (2011) Rapid range shifts of species associated with high levels of climate warming. Science 333:1024–1026

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Crimmins SM, Dobrowski SZ, Greenberg JA, Abatzoglou JT, Mynsberge AR (2011) Changes in climatic water balnace drive downhill shifts in plact species' optimum elevations. Science 331:324–337

  • Crozier L (2004) Warmer winters drive butterfly range expansion by increasing survivorship. Ecology 85:231–241

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crumpacker DW, Box EO, Hardin ED (2001) Implications of climactic warming for conservation of native trees and shrubs in Florida. Conserv Biol 15:1008–1020

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davis MB, Shaw RG (2001) Range shifts and adaptive responses to quaternary climate change. Science 292:673–679

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Davis AJ, Jenkinson LS, Lawton JH, Shorrocks B, Wood S (1998) Making mistakes when predicting shifts in species range in response to global warming. Nature 391:783–786

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • DesGranges J-L, Morneau F (2010) Potential sensitivity of Quebec’s breeding birds to climate change. Avian Conserv Ecol.5:5. http://www.ace-eco.org/vol5/iss2/art5/

  • Doherty PF Jr, Boulinier T, Nichols JD (2003) Local extinction and turnover rates at the edge and interior of species ranges. Annal Zool Fenn 40:145–153

    Google Scholar 

  • Fuhlendorf SD, Harrell WC, Engle DM, Hamilton RG, Davis CA, Leslie DM Jr (2006) Should heterogeneity be the basis for conservation? Grassland bird response to fire and grazing. Ecol Appl 16:1706–1716

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Gasner MR, Jankowski JE, Ciecka AL, Kyle KO, Rabenold KN (2010) Projecting the local impacts of climate change on a Central American montane avian community. Biol Conserv 143:1250–1258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Grabherr G, Goofried M, Gruber A, Pauli H (1995) Patterns and current changes in alpine plant diversity. In: Chapin FS, Korner C (eds) Arctic and alpine biodiversity. Springer, Berlin, pp 167–181

    Google Scholar 

  • Gutzwiller KJ, Barrow WC, White JD, Johnson-Randall L, Cade BS, Zygo LM (2010) Assessing conservation relevance of organism-environment relations using predicted changes in response variables. Methods in Ecol Evol 1:351–358

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harrington R, Woiwood I, Sparks T (1999) Climate change and trophic interactions. Trends Ecol Evol 14:146–149

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hickling R, Roy DB, Hill JK, Fox R, Thomas CD (2006) The distribution of a wide range of taxonomic groups are expanding polewards. Glob Change Biol 12:450–455

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hitch AT, Leberg PL (2006) Breeding distributions of North American bird species moving north as a result of climate change. Conserv Biol 21:534–539

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffman AA, Parsons PA (1997) Extreme environmental change and evolution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes L (2000) Biological consequences of global warming: is the signal already apparent? Trends Ecol Evol 15:56–61

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kampichler C, van Turnout CAM, Devictor V, van de Jeugd HP (2012) Large-scale changes in community composition: determining land use and climate change signals. PLoS ONE 7:e35272. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0035272

    Article  PubMed Central  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Kelly AE, Goulden ML (2008) Rapid shifts in plant distribution with recent climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:11283–11826

    Google Scholar 

  • Knopf FL (1994) Avian assemblages on altered grasslands. Stud Avian Biol 15:247–257

    Google Scholar 

  • Kujala H, Vepsalainen V, Zuckerberg B, Brommer JE (2013) Range margin shifts of birds revisited – the role of spatiotemporally varying survey effort. Glob Change Biol 19:420–430

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • La Sorte FA, Jetz W (2010) Projected range contractions of montane biodiversity under global warming. Proc R Soc B 277:3401–3410

    Article  PubMed Central  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • La Sorte FA, Jetz W (2012) Tracking of climatic niche boundaries under recent climate change. J Anim Ecol 81:914–925

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • La Sorte FA, Thompson FR III (2007) Poleward shifts in winter ranges of North American birds. Ecology 88:1803–1812

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lawler JJ, Ruesch AS, Olden JD, McRae BH (2013) Projected climate-driven faunal movement routes. Ecol Lett. doi:10.1111/ele.12132

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Lehikoinen A, Virkkala R (2015) North by north-west: climate change and directions of density shifts in birds. Glob Change Biol. doi:10.1111/gcb.13150

    Google Scholar 

  • Lenoir J, Gégout J-C, Guisan A, Vittoz P, Wohlgemuth T, Zimmerman NE et al (2010) Going against the flow: potential mechanisms for unexpected downslope range shifts in a warming climate. Ecography 33:295–303

    Google Scholar 

  • Matthews S, O’Connor R, Iverson LR, Prasad AM (2004) Atlas of climate change effects in 150 bird species of the Eastern United States. GTR-NE-318. USDA Forest Service, Northeastern Research Station. Newtown Square, PA. 340 pp. http://www.fs.fed.us/ne/newtown_square/publications/technical_reports/pdfs/2004/gtr318/ne_gtr318.pdf. Accessed 24 June 2013)

  • McCarty JP (2001) Ecological consequences of recent climate change. Conserv Biol 15:320–331

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morris BD, White EP (2012) The EcoData Retriever. http://ecologicaldata.org/ecodata-retriever

  • Parmesan C, Yohe G (2003) A globally coherent fingerprint of climate change impacts across natural systems. Nature 421:37–42

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Parmesan C, Ryrholm N, Stefanescu C, Hill JK, Thomas CD, Descimon H, Huntley B, Kaila L, Kullberg J, Tammaru T, Tennent WJ, Thomas JA, Warren M (1999) Poleward shifts in geographical ranges of butterfly species associated with regional warming. Nature 399:579–583

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Parmesan C, Gaines S, Gonzalez L, Kaufman DM, Kingsolver J, Townsend PA, Sagarin R (2005) Empirical perspectives on species borders: from traditional biogeography to global change. Oikos 108:58–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Peterson AT (2003) Subtle recent distributional shifts in Great Plains bird species. Southwest Nat 48:289–292

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • R Core Team (2014) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. http://www.R-project.org/

  • Rittenhouse CD, Pidgeon AM, Albright TP, Culbert PD, Clayton MK, Flather CH, Masek JG, Radeloff VC (2012) Land-cover change and avian diversity in the conterminous United States. Conserv Biol 26:821–829

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Roy K, Jablonski D, Kaustuv R, Valentine JW (2001) Climate change, species range limits and body size in marine bivalves. Ecol Lett 4:366–370

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stocker TF, Qin D, Platner G-K, Alexander LV, Allen SK et al. (2013) Climate change 2013: the physical science basis. Contributions of working group I to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climat change [Stocker TF, Qin D, Plattner G-K, Tignor M, Allen SK, Boschung J, Nauels A, Xia Y, Bex V, Midgely PM (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  • Svenning JC, Normand S, Skov F (2008) Postglacial dispersal limitation of widespread fores plant species in nemoral Europe. Ecography 31:316–326

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tayleur C, Caplat P, Massimino D, Johnston A, Jonzén N, Smith HG, Lindström Á (2015) Swedish birds are tracking temperature but not rainfall: evidence from a decade of abundance changes. Global Ecol Biogeogr 24:859–872

  • Thomas CD, Lennon JL (1999) Birds extend their ranges northward. Nature 399:213

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Thomas DW, Blondel J, Perret P, Lambrechts MM, Speakman JR (2001) Energetic and fitness costs of mismatching resource supply and demand in seasonally breeding birds. Science 291:2598–2600

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tingley MW, Monahan WB, Beissinger SR, Moritz C (2009) Birds track their Grinnellian niche through a century of climate change. Proc Natl Acad Sci 106:19637–19643

    Article  PubMed Central  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tingley MW, Koo MS, Moritz C, Rush AC, Beissinger SR (2012) The push and pull of climate change causes heterogeneous shifts in avian elevational ranges. Glob Change Biol 18:3279–3290

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • VanDerWal J, Murphy HT, Kutt AS, Perkins GC, Bateman BL, Perry JJ, Reside AE (2012) Focus on poleward shifts in species’ distribution underestimates the fingerprint of climate change. Nat Clim Change 3(239):243

    Google Scholar 

  • Veneir LA, McKenney DW, Wang Y, McKee J (1999) Models of large-scale breeding-bird distribution as a function of macro-climate in Ontario, Canada. J Biogeogr 26:315–328

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Warren MS, Hill JK, Thomas JA, Asher J, Fox R, Huntley B et al (2001) Rapid responses of British butterflies to opposing forces of climate and habitat change. Nature 414:65–69

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Ziolowksi D Jr, Pardieck K, Sauer JR (2010) On the road again for a bird survey that counts. Birding 42:32–40

    Google Scholar 

  • Zuckerburg B, Woods AM, Porter WF (2009) Poleward shifts in breeding bird distributions in New York state. Glob Change Biol 15:1866–1883

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by funding from USDA-AFRI Managed Ecosystems Grant #2010-85101-20457 and by the Oklahoma and North Dakota Agricultural Experiment Stations.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Natural Resource Sciences-Range Program, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND, 58108, USA

    Torre J. Hovick & Devan A. McGranahan

  2. College of Forestry and Conservation, The University of Montana, 32 Campus Drive, Missoula, MT, 59812, USA

    Brady W. Allred

  3. Department of Botany, Oklahoma State University, 301 Physical Sciences, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA

    Michael W. Palmer

  4. Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74078, USA

    R. Dwayne Elmore & Samuel D. Fuhlendorf

Authors
  1. Torre J. Hovick
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Brady W. Allred
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Devan A. McGranahan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Michael W. Palmer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. R. Dwayne Elmore
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Samuel D. Fuhlendorf
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Torre J. Hovick.

Additional information

Communicated by Matts Lindbladh.

Electronic supplementary material

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (TXT 5 kb)

Supplementary material 2 (TXT 124 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hovick, T.J., Allred, B.W., McGranahan, D.A. et al. Informing conservation by identifying range shift patterns across breeding habitats and migration strategies. Biodivers Conserv 25, 345–356 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1053-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-016-1053-6

Keywords

Search

Navigation