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Fire management, climate change and their interacting effects on birds in complex Mediterranean landscapes: dynamic distribution modelling of an early-successional species—the near-threatened Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata)

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Abstract

The current challenge in a context of major environmental changes is to anticipate the responses of species to future landscape and climate scenarios. In the Mediterranean basin, climate change is one the most powerful driving forces of fire dynamics, with fire frequency and impact having markedly increased in recent years. Species distribution modelling plays a fundamental role in this challenge, but better integration of available ecological knowledge is needed to adequately guide conservation efforts. Here, we quantified changes in habitat suitability of an early-succession bird in Catalonia, the Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata), which is globally evaluated as Near Threatened in the IUCN Red List. We assessed potential changes in species distributions between 2000 and 2050 under different fire management and climate change scenarios, and described landscape dynamics using a spatially-explicit fire-succession model that simulates fire impacts in the landscape and post-fire regeneration (MEDFIRE model). Dartford Warbler occurrence data were acquired at two different spatial scales from: (1) the Atlas of European Breeding Birds (EBCC) and (2) the Catalan Breeding Bird Atlas (CBBA). Habitat suitability was modelled using five widely-used modelling techniques in an ensemble forecasting framework. Our results indicated considerable habitat suitability losses (ranging between 47 and 57 % in baseline scenarios), which were modulated to a large extent by fire regime changes derived from fire management policies and climate changes. Such result highlighted the need for taking the spatial interaction between climate changes, fire-mediated landscape dynamics and fire management policies into account for coherently anticipating habitat suitability changes of early-succession bird species. We conclude that fire management programs need to be integrated into conservation plans to effectively preserve sparsely forested and early succession habitats and their associated species in the face of global environmental change.

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Acknowledgments

We want to thank the support and dedication of our colleagues Miquel De Cáceres, Dani Villero and Rui Fernandes. Partial funding supporting this project was received from the EU BON project (308454; FP7-ENV-2012, European Commission), BIONOVEL CGL2011-29539, CONSOLIDER-MONTES CSD2008-00040 projects and the TRUSTEE project (RURAGRI ERA-NET 235175). M.D. was supported by the FP7-PEOPLE-2012-IEF Marie Curie Action (Project number 327987). A.G. was supported by the grant SESAM’ALP’ of the Swiss National Science Foundation (nr 31003A-1528661).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CEMFOR-CTFC, InForest Joint Research Unit, CSIC-CTFC-CREAF, Solsona, 25280, Spain

    Adrián Regos & Lluís Brotons

  2. CREAF, 08193, Cerdanyola Del Vallés, Spain

    Adrián Regos & Lluís Brotons

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Manuela D’Amen & Antoine Guisan

  4. European Bird Census Council-Catalan Ornithological Institute, Natural History Museum of Barcelona, Plaça Leonardo da Vinci 4-5, 08019, Barcelona, Spain

    Sergi Herrando & Lluís Brotons

  5. Institute of Earth Science Dynamics, University of Lausanne, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Antoine Guisan

  6. CSIC, 08193, Cerdanyola Del Vallés, Spain

    Lluís Brotons

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  1. Adrián Regos
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  2. Manuela D’Amen
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  3. Sergi Herrando
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  4. Antoine Guisan
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  5. Lluís Brotons
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Correspondence to Adrián Regos.

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Communicated by E. Matthysen.

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Regos, A., D’Amen, M., Herrando, S. et al. Fire management, climate change and their interacting effects on birds in complex Mediterranean landscapes: dynamic distribution modelling of an early-successional species—the near-threatened Dartford Warbler (Sylvia undata). J Ornithol 156 (Suppl 1), 275–286 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10336-015-1174-9

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