Where did The Career begin? Have you seen the eggs?

1. Where did The Career begin?Have you seen the eggs? Good luck with larger birds

2. Impacts of Climate Change on Birds a review of 256 years of research

3. Climate in a nutshell • What is climate? Average weather in an area • Köppen’s climate regions define zonal structure of environmental conditions on earth • Weather is determined on macroscale by cells of circulating air masses • Air pressure systems and their variability – ENSO, NAO, AO etc. determine regional weather variations and climatic regimes and regime shifts • El Nino/Southern Oscillation, North Atlantic oscillation, Arctic oscillation • Teleconnections between systems. Definition Teleconnection - A strong statistical relationship between weather in different parts of the globe. For example, there appears to be a teleconnection between the tropics and North America during El Niño.

4. Climate Change in a nutshell • Climate is always changing • But many of the previous ”climate changes” have been stronger and some also faster • Current warming is taking place in a period when we should expect an approaching Ice Age. • An older model predicted shift of trend towards cooling around 2015 • Are there counteracting effects on climate, which cause warming and delay for some time the threatening approach of Ice Age? • Climate Cycles, e.g. NAO • Human activities as a cause of current Climate Warming • An important note: • Human role in the current climate change is irrelevant for the ecological study of impacts of climate change • We can study climate and weather impacts on ecosystem and its components without committing ourselves concerning the role of human impact in current warming

5. NAO time series for the recent 55 years • NAO was predominantly positive from 1982 to 1995 • Winter NAO, most often used in ecology, has decreased since 1995 and the annual NAO shows no trend • Will the temperatures rise continuously following the predicted models? • Nobody knows, I guess

6. 60-90 °N global Five models’ prediction of future Ta change Source: Arctic Climate Impact Assessment

7. How Climate Warming may affect birds? • migratory tendency within species/population may change or even vanish altogether (migrants become sedentary) • Timing of events (spring and autumn migration, breeding, moult) may change. Lengthsof migratory and sedentary stages may change • Distributionranges during breeding and/or winter may change and this may lead to changes of community structure in both summer and winter regions • Migratory routes and stopover sites may change • Abundances (population sizes) may change. • Traits of birds may change, eg. size, proportions, condition measures • All these changes may be • Behavioural and • or otherwise due to plasticity allowed by the reaction norm or • they may be evolutionary selective changes

8. How we should approach Climate Change Impacts? • individualistic approach – track the response of individuals from day to day through its annual cycle and whole life • community/ecosystem/geographical approach – monitor range shifts and changes of community/ecostystem structure • Should we first understand what happens at the lower organizational levels of individual/population and predict the outcomes at higher levels or • Should we study the Climate Change Impacts at all levels simultaneously, and leave the connection from individual and population to community at a later stage? • Taken that the models of Climate Change predict a correct order of the magnitude and speed of change, we have so little time to do all steps in the ”right” order, that it is better to proceed at all fronts simultaneously • I will concentrate on examples of the individualistic approach in this review

9. Historical data and climate variability Long time series

10. An example of useful Finnish long time series: does the Wagtail break the ice in spring (a premature picture)?

11. Climate of Northern Europe – previous warming period 1870-1940 Source: http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/jhurrell/indices.data.html#naostatmon Source: Kalela 1946

12. Comparison of dependence of first arrival on temperature between different climate ”regimes” Temperature responses in different warming/cooling periods In the Skylark, an early migrant,the spring temperature affects significantly the timing of spring arrival (df = 1, F=18.59, p <0.0001). The temperature*period- interaction was not significant (df = 2, F = 0.07, p = 0.9334) as in all thirteen study species. In the Swift, a late migrant, timing of spring arrival was not dependent on spring temperature (df = 1, F = 0.08, p = 0.7795). The temperature*period interaction: df = 2, F = 0.14, p = 0.8724. In the recent period first individuals are observed earlier because of increased observer activity Rainio et al. (unpublished)

13. Lapwing – the classic example of range shifts attributed to climate change

14. Earlier warming impact studies - summary • Mainly range shifts were studied • Phenological or breeding studies were not done • The role of other factors were discussed, but there was little possibility to measure their separate roles, e.g. habitat change effects on wintering and/ or breeding grounds • Best overviews are those of Kalela, e.g. 1949

15. Recent Climate Change and its Impacts A review of behavioural changes at individual and population levels

16. Phenology – theoretical predictions • spring migration • breeding • moult • autumn migration • wintering • length of stay in breeding area • number of breeding attempts • reproductive effort and result • time used for migrations • wintering duration • birds turn from migrants to permanent residents • Phenological changes may have consequences on population parameters

17. Spring arrival – all species one locality

18. …arrival time of migrants (Lehikoinen et al. 2004, review)

19. Autumn departure – all species one locality Average delay of 5 days 1976-1999, Half of the advancement of spring pmigration

20. …departure time of migrants(Lehikoinen et al. 2004) • Dependence of departure dates on temperature are less well understood and more variable • In Rybatchi (Kaliningrad d.) timing of autumn migration is determined by spring arrival and hence spring weather • This contradicts the general prediction of later departure

21. Things are more variable and more complicated than simple analyses suggest More detailed studies with well know model species, e.g the Pied Flycatcher, Ficedula hypoleuca

22. Arrival of the Pied Flycatcher in FinlandAhola et al. (2004)

23. …and more complicated:responses of different sexes (Rainio et al. unpubl)

24. Do migratory distances change? • Expectation: migratory species may start to winter closer to the breeding areas • The Greenfinch appears to behave as expected (German data)

25. Do migratory distances change? • But the Starling behaves in another way • The reason to the difference is something else than winter weather, perhaps changes in agriculture and waste management

26. Do migratory distances change? Summary of the first more extensive analysis • German recoveries have been analyzed (Source: Fiedler, Bairlein & Köppen 2004) • Many other sources of variation • Distribution of observed changes in a haphazard sample of 30 species in the figure show slight average tendency towards shortening • Finnish recoveries not yet available

27. Condition improvement with climate amelioration? – NAO response

28. Breeding performance • relationship of breeding success and time • Are there general rules? • shifts to earlier start • does it mean improvement of breeding success? • does it mean increased opportunities to second broods? • or something else • The critical points are • the degree of change – a few days advancement need not mean anything, and • Another thing is to look what the ”food of birds is doing” as a response to local climate changes

29. …of breeding time intraspecifc spatial var. Visser et al. • interspecific • Crick et al. 1997: BTO Nest Record Scheme • 65 species, 1971-95 • 51 breeding has become earlier • 20 of these statistically significantly • 1 sign. later • Crick & Sparks 1999: • 36 species,1939-95 • 57 % earlier • 37 % significantly so • 31/36 timing of breeding explained by temperature and/or precipitation

30. Temperature effects on breeding time • Dunn (2004) an ”availability” sample of observational data for 5-60 years per species • timing is temperature related in most (temperate) species, 79% (n=57 species) • median advancement 2.3 days/°C in this sample (range from no effect to 7 days/°C) • Finnish data not yet available

31. What would this mean in the future? • linear extrapolation: • mild vs. strong scenarios of warming by 2100 would mean advancement of breeding by less than a week vs. two weeks • this is probably too simplistic, because • Visser, Both and Lambrechts (2004) • ”there is no a priori reason to expect that all components of food chains will shift their phenology at the same rate”

32. Mismatch of breeding time with food

33. …mismatch of food availability and breeding • Invertebrates are responding directly and fast to phenological changes, warming of spring and accompanying plant phenology • Birds respond slower for one or other reason • mismatch of timing of maximal food availability and breeding follows • Pied Flycatcher in the Netherlands (Both et al. 2001) • timing of migration has not followed climate change (but cf. our results in a more northern study area) • but the sedentary Great Tit is also suffering from mismatch, only 1-2 days shift against 5 days in food • prebreeding conditions may preclude the females from laying(?)

34. Changes of breeding effort and success • very little and variable information so far • Järvinen (1994): clutch size higher in warmer springs in Lapland; Winkel & Hudde (1997): clutch size large in warmer and earlier springs in Pied Flycatcher • Clutch size is increasing with climate warming, but • the mismatch cases appear to contradict this • And even in the same target species other situations exist • Sanz (2002): no change in clutch size in Tits • Best current generalisation is perhaps that response in clutch size varies among species and does so also within species between areas

35. Impacts on birds: summary • Changes of • arrival time of migrants ***strong evidence • departure time of migrants *weak evidence • shortening of migration, giving up migration **some evidence • of breeding time ** medium evidence • of breeding performance *weak evidence • of timing of moultohardly studied at all • mismatch of food and breeding *medium evidence • annual survival *weak evidence • population trends (increase/decrease) *weak evidence • distributions: northern and/or southern borders *weak evidence

36. Kaarlo Linkola 1923 when studying plant phenology