首页|Seasonal rainfall in subtropical montane cloud forests drives demographic fluctuations in a Green-backed Tit population

Seasonal rainfall in subtropical montane cloud forests drives demographic fluctuations in a Green-backed Tit population

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  • NSTL
  • Oxford Univ Press
Montane birds are vulnerable to climate change. However, the mechanisms by which weather drives demographic processes in montane birds have seldom been investigated. We conducted a long-term study (2009-2019) on the Green-backed Tit (Parus monticolus), an insectivorous passerine, in the montane cloud forest of subtropical Taiwan. We explored the effects of weather variability on the productivity and survival of adult Green-backed Tits. Nest survival was negatively associated with seasonal rainfall during the breeding season (April-July) and was lower in early clutches than in late clutches. Higher typhoon-induced precipitation during the postbreeding period (July-September) was related to reduced adult survival, but neither summer temperature nor winter weather conditions were found to be related to adult bird survival. We developed a stochastic simulation model for Green-backed Tit population dynamics based on empirical data. We compared the simulated time-series and observed population growth rates (lambda) and found that 80% (8/10 yr) of the observed lambda fell within the 5th and 95th percentiles of the simulated data over the 10-yr period. Moreover, the simulated average (+/- standard deviation) of the geometric mean of lambda over 10 yr (1.05 +/- 0.07) was close to that observed from 2009 to 2019 (0.99), which provided confidence that the model effectively simulated the population growth rate of the Green-backed Tit. We conducted a sensitivity analysis for lambda and found that juvenile and adult survival influenced by typhoon-induced rainfall were the greatest contributors to the variance in the growth rate of the Green-backed Tit population. With the onset of intensified seasonal precipitation associated with global warming, the population growth and density of Green-backed Tits will decline substantially. Our results suggest that under scenarios of high emissions of greenhouse gas, this local population of Green-backed Tits will not persist in the near future.

adult survivalmonsoon precipitationParus monticolusproductivitytyphoon

Shiao, Ming-Tang、Chuang, Mei-Chen、Yuan, Hsiao-Wei、Wang, Ying

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Taiwan Forestry Res Inst, Fushan Res Ctr, Yuanshan Township, Yilan County, Taiwan

Civil Aeronaut Adm, Air Nav & Weather Serv, Lujhu, Taoyuan County, Taiwan

Natl Taiwan Univ, Sch Forestry & Resource Conservat, Taipei, Taiwan

Natl Taiwan Normal Univ, Dept Life Sci, Taipei, Taiwan

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2020

10.1093/condor/duaa043

The condor

The condor

ISSN：0010-5422
年,卷(期)：2020.122(4)
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