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Differences in the climatic debts of birds and butterflies at a continental scale

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Author

  • Vincent Devictor
  • Chris van Swaay
  • Tom Brereton
  • Lluis Brotons
  • Dan Chamberlain
  • Janne Heliola
  • Sergi Herrando
  • Romain Julliard
  • Mikko Kuussaari
  • Åke Lindström
  • Jiri Reif
  • David B. Roy
  • Oliver Schweiger
  • Josef Settele
  • Constanti Stefanescu
  • Arco Van Strien
  • Chris Van Turnhout
  • Zdenek Vermouzek
  • Michiel WallisDeVries
  • Irma Wynhoff
  • Frederic Jiguet
Show all

Summary, in English

Climate changes have profound effects on the distribution of numerous plant and animal species(1-3). However, whether and how different taxonomic groups are able to track climate changes at large spatial scales is still unclear. Here, we measure and compare the climatic debt accumulated by bird and butterfly communities at a European scale over two decades (1990-2008). We quantified the yearly change in community composition in response to climate change for 9,490 bird and 2,130 butterfly communities distributed across Europe(4). We show that changes in community composition are rapid but different between birds and butterflies and equivalent to a 37 and 114 km northward shift in bird and butterfly communities, respectively. We further found that, during the same period, the northward shift in temperature in Europe was even faster, so that the climatic debts of birds and butterflies correspond to a 212 and 135 km lag behind climate. Our results indicate both that birds and butterflies do not keep up with temperature increase and the accumulation of different climatic debts for these groups at national and continental scales.

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

121-124

Publication/Series

Nature Climate Change

Volume

2

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Nature Publishing Group

Topic

  • Ecology

Status

Published

Research group

  • Biodiversity and Conservation Science

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1758-6798