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Projecting the Local Impacts of Climate Change on a Central American Montane Avian CommunitySignificant changes in the climates of Central America are expected over the next century. Lowland rainforests harbor high alpha diversity on local scales (<1 km2), yet montane landscapes often support higher beta diversity on 10-100 km2 scales. Climate change will likely disrupt the altitudinal zonation of montane communities that produces such landscape diversity. Projections of biotic response to climate change have often used broad-scale modelling of geographical ranges, but understanding likely impacts on population viability is also necessary for anticipating local and global extinctions. We model species abundances and estimate range shifts for birds in the Tilaran Mountains of Costa Rica, asking whether projected changes in temperature and rainfall could be sufficient to imperil high-elevation endemics and whether these variables will likely impact communities similarly. We find that nearly half of 77 forest bird species can be expected to decline in the next century. Almost half of species projected to decline are endemic to Central America, and seven of eight species projected to become locally extinct are endemic to the highlands of Costa Rica and Panam . Logistic-regression modelling of distributions and similarity in projections produced by temperature and rainfall models suggest that changes in both variables will be important. Although these projections are probably conservative because they do not explicitly incorporate biological or climate variable interactions, they provide a starting point for incorporating more realistic biological complexity into community-change models. Prudent conservation planning for tropical mountains should focus on regions with room for altitudinal reorganization of communities comprised of ecological specialists.
Document ID
20110008646
Acquisition Source
Headquarters
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Gasner, Matthew R.
(Purdue Univ. West Lafayette, IN, United States)
Jankowski, Jill E.
(Florida Univ. Gainesville, FL, United States)
Ciecka, Anna L.
(Purdue Univ. West Lafayette, IN, United States)
Kyle, Keiller O.
(Purdue Univ. West Lafayette, IN, United States)
Rabenold, Kerry N.
(Purdue Univ. West Lafayette, IN, United States)
Date Acquired
August 25, 2013
Publication Date
May 1, 2010
Publication Information
Publication: Biologial Conservation
Publisher: Elsevier Ltd.
Volume: 143
Issue: 5
ISSN: 0006-3207
Subject Category
Meteorology And Climatology
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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