科研之友
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摘要
The increasing need to predict how climate change will impact wildlife species has exposed limitations in how well current approaches model important biological processes at scales at which those processes interact with climate. We used a comprehensive approach that combined recent advances in landscape and population modeling into dynamic-landscape metapopulation models (DLMPs) to predict responses of two declining songbird species in the central hardwoods region of the United States to changes in forest conditions from climate change. We modeled wood thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) and prairie warbler (Setophaga discolor) population dynamics and distribution throughout the central hardwoods based on estimates of habitat and demographics derived from landscapes projected through 2100 under a current climate scenario and two future climate change scenarios. Climate change, natural forest succession, and forest management interacted to change forest structure and composition over time, variably affecting the distribution and amount of habitat of the two birds. The resulting changes in habitat and metapopulation processes produced contrasting predictions for future populations. Wood thrush, a forest generalist, showed little response to climate-driven forest change but declined by >25% due to reduced productivity associated with existing forest fragmentation across much of the region. Prairie warblers initially declined due to loss of habitat resulting from current land management; however, after 2050 cumulative effects of climate change on forest structure created enough habitat in source landscapes to restore population growth. These species-specific responses were the result of interactions among climate, landscape, and population processes. We suggest relationships between climate change, succession, and land management are species specific and important determinants of future wildlife populations and that DLMPs are a comprehensive approach that can capture such processes to generate more realistic predictions of populations under climate change.
- 出版日期2017-7
