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      Decline of the North American avifauna

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          Abstract

          Species extinctions have defined the global biodiversity crisis, but extinction begins with loss in abundance of individuals that can result in compositional and functional changes of ecosystems. Using multiple and independent monitoring networks, we report population losses across much of the North American avifauna over 48 years, including once common species and from most biomes. Integration of range-wide population trajectories and size estimates indicates a net loss approaching 3 billion birds, or 29% of 1970 abundance. A continent-wide weather radar network also reveals a similarly steep decline in biomass passage of migrating birds over a recent 10-year period. This loss of bird abundance signals an urgent need to address threats to avert future avifaunal collapse and associated loss of ecosystem integrity, function and services.

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          Migratory animals couple biodiversity and ecosystem functioning worldwide.

          Animal migrations span the globe, involving immense numbers of individuals from a wide range of taxa. Migrants transport nutrients, energy, and other organisms as they forage and are preyed upon throughout their journeys. These highly predictable, pulsed movements across large spatial scales render migration a potentially powerful yet underappreciated dimension of biodiversity that is intimately embedded within resident communities. We review examples from across the animal kingdom to distill fundamental processes by which migratory animals influence communities and ecosystems, demonstrating that they can uniquely alter energy flow, food-web topology and stability, trophic cascades, and the structure of metacommunities. Given the potential for migration to alter ecological networks worldwide, we suggest an integrative framework through which community dynamics and ecosystem functioning may explicitly consider animal migrations.
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            Climate-driven declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web

            Significance Arthropods, invertebrates including insects that have external skeletons, are declining at an alarming rate. While the tropics harbor the majority of arthropod species, little is known about trends in their abundance. We compared arthropod biomass in Puerto Rico’s Luquillo rainforest with data taken during the 1970s and found that biomass had fallen 10 to 60 times. Our analyses revealed synchronous declines in the lizards, frogs, and birds that eat arthropods. Over the past 30 years, forest temperatures have risen 2.0 °C, and our study indicates that climate warming is the driving force behind the collapse of the forest’s food web. If supported by further research, the impact of climate change on tropical ecosystems may be much greater than currently anticipated.
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              Commonness, population depletion and conservation biology.

              Species conservation practice, as opposed to principle, generally emphasizes species at risk of imminent extinction. This results in priority lists principally of those with small populations and/or geographical ranges. However, recent work emphasizes the importance of common species to ecosystems. Even relatively small proportional declines in their abundance can result in large absolute losses of individuals and biomass, occurrences significantly disrupting ecosystem structure, function and services. Here, we argue that combined with evidence of dramatic declines in once common species, this suggests the need to pay more attention to such depletions. Complementing the focus on extinction risk, we highlight important implications for conservation, including the need to identify, monitor and alleviate significant depletion events.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Science
                Science
                American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
                0036-8075
                1095-9203
                September 19 2019
                : eaaw1313
                Article
                10.1126/science.aaw1313
                31604313
                8521747d-404e-4e7b-930a-8cec69d199b0
                © 2019
                History

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