Abstract
Increased attention is being paid to the ecological drivers and conservation measures which could mitigate climate change-induced pressures for species survival, potentially helping populations to remain in their present-day locations longer. One important buffering mechanism against climate change may be provided by the heterogeneity in topography and consequent local climate conditions. However, the buffering capacity of this topoclimate has so far been insufficiently studied based on empirical survey data across multiple sites and species. Here, we studied whether the fine-grained air temperature variation of protected areas (PAs) affects the population changes of declining northern forest bird species. Importantly to our study, in PAs harmful land use, such as logging, is not allowed, enabling the detection of the effects of temperature buffering, even at relatively moderate levels of topographic variation. Our survey data from 129 PAs located in the boreal zone in Finland show that the density of northern forest species was higher in topographically heterogeneous PAs than in topographically more homogeneous PAs. Moreover, local temperature variation had a significant effect on the density change of northern forest birds from 1981–1999 to 2000–2017, indicating that change in bird density was generally smaller in PAs with higher topographic variation. Thus, we found a clear buffering effect stemming from the local temperature variation of PAs in the population trends of northern forest birds.
Highlights
Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity [1,2], increasingly affecting present-day species populations and communities [3,4,5,6]
We investigated the variation within the protected areas (PAs) in fine-grained air temperature patterns to assess whether larger temperature variation can slow down the negative effects of climate warming on bird species populations
We found that the combined density of the 17 studied northern forest bird species declined significantly (p < 0.001) by ca. 38% between 1981–1999 and 2000–2017 (Table 1)
Summary
Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity [1,2], increasingly affecting present-day species populations and communities [3,4,5,6]. Changes in climate are projected to cause further poleward and upward species range shifts in the future [2,11]; but, in many areas rapidly changing conditions will challenge the ability of species to track the spatial reorganization of suitable locations [12,13,14]. Climate-smart conservation strategies are required to identify landscape characteristics which best support the range-shifting and persistence of species populations [15,16]. The conservation of landscapes with high topoclimatic variation allows species to move shorter distances while tracking suitable conditions. Thereby, it may facilitate the extended persistence of trailing-edge (the contracting or retreating edge of range) populations by providing refuges and holdouts with favorable local climate conditions [20,21,22,23]. Variation in topoclimates provides a potentially important buffering mechanism against the impacts of climate change on biodiversity [17]
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