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Testing for effects of climate change on competitive relationships and coexistence between two bird species

Nils Chr. Stenseth, Joël M. Durant, Mike Fowler Orcid Logo, Erik Matthysen, Frank Adriaensen, Niclas Jonzén, Kung-Sik Chan, Hai Liu, Jenny De Laet, Ben C. Sheldon, Marcel E. Visser, André A. Dhondt

Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Volume: 282, Issue: 1807, Pages: 20141958 - 20141958

Swansea University Author: Mike Fowler Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1098/rspb.2014.1958

Abstract

Climate change is expected to have profound ecological effects, yet shifts in competitive abilities among species are rarely studied in this context. Blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) and great tits (Parus major) compete for food and roosting sites, yet coexist across much of their range. Climate chan...

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Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
ISSN: 0962-8452 1471-2954
Published: The Royal Society 2015
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa20840
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Abstract: Climate change is expected to have profound ecological effects, yet shifts in competitive abilities among species are rarely studied in this context. Blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) and great tits (Parus major) compete for food and roosting sites, yet coexist across much of their range. Climate change might thus change the competitive relationships and coexistence between these two species. Analysing four of the highest-quality, long-term datasets avail- able on these species across Europe, we extend the textbook example of coexistence between competing species to include the dynamic effects of long-term climate variation. Using threshold time-series statistical modelling, we demonstrate that long-term climate variation affects species demography through different influences on density-dependent and density-independent processes. The competitive interaction between blue tits and great tits has shifted in one of the studied sites, creating conditions that alter the relative equilibrium densities between the two species, potentially disrupting long- term coexistence. Our analyses show that long-term climate change can, but does not always, generate local differences in the equilibrium conditions of spatially structured species assemblages. We demonstrate how long-term data can be used to better understand whether (and how), for instance, climate change might change the relationships between coexisting species. However, the studied populations are rather robust against competitive exclusion.
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 1807
Start Page: 20141958
End Page: 20141958

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