Climate, ecological dynamics, and the seasonal distribution of birds in mountains

Somveille, Marius, Freeman, Benjamin G., La Sorte, Frank A. and Tuanmu, Mao-Ning (2026) Climate, ecological dynamics, and the seasonal distribution of birds in mountains. Science Advances. ISSN 2375-2548

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Abstract

Biodiversity is unevenly distributed along elevational gradients. The predominant hypothesis is that macroevolutionary dynamics and climatic niche conservatism explain today’s elevational patterns of biodiversity, but the alternative energy efficiency hypothesis emphasizes modern ecological interactions related to energy budgets. We test these competing hypotheses by examining seasonal elevational ranges for 10,998 bird populations in 34 mountain regions. Multiple lines of evidence support the energy efficiency hypothesis, including that many mountain birds do not seasonally track their thermal niche with high fidelity while simulation models based on optimal energy balancing under current environmental conditions yield predictions that tightly match empirical data. Our results reveal that altitudinal migration, which is widespread yet considerably understudied, is a behavioral mechanism fulfilling the same ecological function as long-distance latitudinal migration. Overall, this work provides a better understanding and predictive capacity for mountain birds under global change.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data and Materials Availability: Participatory science data on avian species occurrences are freely available from eBird: https://science.ebird.org/en/use-ebird-data. The mountain range boundaries and environmental data that we used in this study are all freely available and downloadable from online sources: https://naturalearthdata.com (mountain range boundaries), https://land.copernicus.eu/global/products/vegetation (NDVI), www.chelsa-climate.org/ (temperature), and www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/catalog/lpcloud-srtmgl3-003 (elevation). The computer code used for all the analysis presented in this manuscript is available in the following repository: https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3j9kd51zq. The study involved no new materials preparation.
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	15 Apr 2026 08:46
Last Modified:	15 Apr 2026 19:35
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102781
DOI:	10.1126/sciadv.adz5547

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