Abstract
Migratory waterbirds require an effectively conserved cohesive network of wetland areas throughout their range and life-cycle. Under rapid climate change, protected area (PA) networks need to be able to accommodate climate-driven range shifts in wildlife if they are to continue to be effective in the future. Thus, we investigated geographical variation in the relationship between local temperature anomaly and the abundance of 61 waterbird species during the wintering season across Europe and North Africa during 1990–2015. We also compared the spatio-temporal effects on abundance of sites designated as PAs, Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs), both, or neither designation (Unlisted). Waterbird abundance was positively correlated with temperature anomaly, with this pattern being strongest towards north and east Europe. Waterbird abundance was higher inside IBAs, whether they were legally protected or not. Trends in waterbird abundance were also consistently more positive inside both protected and unprotected IBAs across the whole study region, and were positive in Unlisted wetlands in southwestern Europe and North Africa. These results suggest that IBAs are important sites for wintering waterbirds, but also that populations are shifting to unprotected wetlands (some of which are IBAs). Such IBAs may therefore represent robust candidate sites to expand the network of legally protected wetlands under climate change in north-eastern Europe. These results underscore the need for monitoring to understand how the effectiveness of site networks is changing under climate change.
Highlights
The all-pervasive and continuous transformation of ecosystems by humans has caused extensive habitat loss and degradation, exacerbated in recent decades by rapid climate change, which have dramatically increased the extinction risk of many species globally (Parmesan and Yohe, 2003; Pimm et al, 2006)
Our results showed that annual changes in the abundance of wintering waterbirds across Europe and North Africa in the past 26 years were positively correlated with changes in temperature anomalies, as depicted by local temperature anomalies (Table 1 Line 2)
We show that the long-term trend in the winter abundance across the studied region differs spatially within species’ wintering ranges and between four wetland categories of protection level
Summary
The all-pervasive and continuous transformation of ecosystems by humans has caused extensive habitat loss and degradation, exacerbated in recent decades by rapid climate change, which have dramatically increased the extinction risk of many species globally (Parmesan and Yohe, 2003; Pimm et al, 2006). Under the prevailing dynamics of increasingly rapid environmental changes, conservation strategies must be under constant review to ensure that they continue to conserve biodiversity in the long-term (Alagador et al, 2014; Araújo et al, 2011; Hermoso et al, 2017). Given ongoing climate change-driven changes in the abundance and range of many species, there is debate about the effectiveness of protected area networks to conserve the species (and habitats) that they are designated to conserve (Hole et al, 2009; Johnston et al, 2013; Thomas et al, 2012). It is vital to investigate how species have responded to recent changes in climatic conditions within and outside the protected area network as a basis for developing effective strategies to meet the challenges of future climate change (Hole et al, 2009; Johnston et al, 2013; Pavón-Jordán et al, 2015)
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