Decomposing drivers in avian insectivory: Large-scale effects of climate, habitat and bird diversity
Publikation: Bidrag til tidsskrift › Tidsskriftartikel › Forskning › fagfællebedømt
Aim: Climate is a major driver of large-scale variability in biodiversity, as a likely result of more intense biotic interactions under warmer conditions. This idea fuelled decades of research on plant-herbivore interactions, but much less is known about higher-level trophic interactions. We addressed this research gap by characterizing both bird diversity and avian predation along a climatic gradient at the European scale. Location: Europe. Taxon: Insectivorous birds and pedunculate oaks. Methods: We deployed plasticine caterpillars in 138 oak trees in 47 sites along a 19° latitudinal gradient in Europe to quantify bird insectivory through predation attempts. In addition, we used passive acoustic monitoring to (i) characterize the acoustic diversity of surrounding soundscapes; (ii) approximate bird abundance and activity through passive acoustic recordings; and (iii) infer both taxonomic and functional diversity of insectivorous birds from recordings. Results: The functional diversity of insectivorous birds increased with warmer climates. Bird predation increased with forest cover and bird acoustic activity but decreased with mean annual temperature and functional richness of insectivorous birds. Contrary to our predictions, climatic clines in bird predation attempts were not directly mediated by changes in insectivorous bird diversity or acoustic activity, but climate and habitat still had independent effects on predation attempts. Main Conclusions: Our study supports the hypothesis of an increase in the diversity of insectivorous birds towards warmer climates but refutes the idea that an increase in diversity would lead to more predation and advocates for better accounting for activity and abundance of insectivorous birds when studying the large-scale variation in insect-tree interactions.
| Originalsprog | Engelsk |
|---|---|
| Tidsskrift | Journal of Biogeography |
| Vol/bind | 51 |
| Udgave nummer | 6 |
| Sider (fra-til) | 1079-1094 |
| ISSN | 0305-0270 |
| DOI | |
| Status | Udgivet - 2024 |
Bibliografisk note
Funding Information:
This study was permitted by the financial support of the BNP Paribas Foundation through its Climate & Biodiversity Initiative for the ‘Tree bodyguards’ citizen science project. FB and DT were supported by the PN 23090102 and 34PFE./30.12.2021 ‘Increasing the institutional capacity and performance of INCDS ‘Marin Drăcea’ in the activity of RDI—CresPerfInst’ funded by the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization of Romania. MB was supported by the Forest Research Centre (CEF) (UIDB/00239/2020) and the Laboratory for Sustainable Land Use and Ecosystem Services—TERRA (LA/P/0092/2020) funded by FCT, Portugal. MdG and AK were supported by the core research group ‘Forest biology, ecology and technology’ (P4‐0107) of the Slovenian Research Agency. MVK was supported by the Academy of Finland (project 316,182). VL was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (project 23‐07533S) and Academy of Sciences (RVO 67985939). EM and KS were supported by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (19‐28,126X). KS and AM were supported by ERC StG BABE 805189. XM was supported by a grant from the Spanish National Research Council (2021AEP082) and a grant from the Regional Government of Galicia (IN607A 2021/03). ZV was supported by a grant awarded by the Autonomous Government of Galicia (Spain; Modalidade B‐2019), and Maria Zambrano programme from the Spanish Ministry of Universities. LB was supported by funding from LTSER ZA Pyrenees Garonne. We thank the personnel of Centro Nazionale Carabinieri Biodiversità ‘Bosco Fontana’ for help in data collection. We thank Tarja Heinonen for help in field work in Berlin, Germany. We thank Roman Hrdlička and Kari Mäntylä for bird voice identification. We thank E. L. Zvereva for help in data collection. No fieldwork permit was required for this study.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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