PRECIPITATION DEFICIT OR INCREASED WARMING? WHICH ONE IS DRIVING THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON MEDITERRANEAN BIRD POPULATIONS?

Abstract

Climate change is often equated to climate warming because it’s more prominent global effect is the increase of temperature. In Europe as a whole, as well as in their temperate and boreal regions, there are already strong evidences that temperature rise is shifting bird populations and communities. However, this general pattern has not been clearly found in the Mediterranean region, where the majority of ecosystems are more shaped by water availability than by temperature constraints, and where climate change is also associated with decreased rainfall. In this study we compared the part played by temperature and precipitation preferences in driving bird population trends in Catalonia (north-west Mediterranean basin). Trends were estimated with long-term monitoring data and the temperature and precipitation preferences were calculated using atlas data.