The avian community structure of Wuyi Mountains is sensitive to recent climate warming

Abstract

Climate change has become a challenge for biodiversity. As birds are sensitive to environmental change, they are considered as excellent models in studies on the effects of habitat conversion interacting with climate change. A nuanced understanding of the original drivers of the community structure involves the study of beta diversity metrics of different scales related to environmental factors. In this study, we attempted to unveil the drivers of bird community structure by studying beta diversity and its partitioning components with climate warming, thereby gaining insight into avian community structure trends. A systematic survey was conducted in eight regions of the Wuyi Mountains (WMs) from 2015 to 2019. Our results showed that the annual mean temperature and annual precipitation of the WMs have been increasing in a synchronous manner for the last 30 years, while the bird community structure changed in an uneven manner. Species adopted different strategies when facing climate change and the dominant bird species alternated in the mountains with the bird community structure changing sequentially. A comprehensive analysis of bird distribution data and environmental factors showed that the bird community structure was mainly preserved by the environmental filtering process, while some regions with habitats largely different from those of the neighboring regions experienced climate-induced competitive exclusion. In an overall stable bird community in the WMs, the species were slightly affected by climate change; however, a few bird communities were sensitive to climate warming in local areas with environmental heterogeneity. Specialists at the mid-altitude mountains will suffer severe negative consequences, while human activities will alleviate effectively the negative impact of future climate change. These findings suggest that mild agricultural activities should be allowed in the mountains in the context of conservation and management strategies.