Simulation-based reconstruction of global bird migration over the past 50,000 years

Somveille, Marius ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6868-5080, Wikelski, Martin, Beyer, Robert M., Rodrigues, Ana S. L., Manica, Andrea and Jetz, Walter (2020) Simulation-based reconstruction of global bird migration over the past 50,000 years. Nature Communications, 11. ISSN 2041-1723

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Abstract

Migration is a widespread response of birds to seasonally varying climates. As seasonality is particularly pronounced during interglacial periods, this raises the question of the significance of bird migration during past periods with different patterns of seasonality. Here, we apply a mechanistic model to climate reconstructions to simulate the past 50,000 years of bird migration worldwide, a period encompassing the transition between the last glacial period and the current interglacial. Our results indicate that bird migration was also a prevalent phenomenon during the last ice age, almost as much as today, suggesting that it has been continually important throughout the glacial cycles of recent Earth history. We find however regional variations, with increasing migratory activity in the Americas, which is not mirrored in the Old World. These results highlight the strong flexibility of the global bird migration system and offer a baseline in the context of on-going anthropogenic climate change.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: Correction to: Nature Communications https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-14589-2, published online 18 February 2020. The original version of this Article contained an error in the legend of Fig. 2 and Supplementary Figs. 2 and 8–16, each of which incorrectly stated ‘The global patterns were computed as the predicted richness in the past, i.e. predicted number of species per hexagon: 10,000 years before present (a, b); 20,000 BP (c, d); and 50,000 BP (e, f), minus the predicted richness in the present. BP before present. Red areas had more species than today, blue areas fewer’. The correct version reads ‘The global patterns were computed as the predicted richness in the present minus the predicted richness in the past, i.e. predicted number of species per hexagon: 10,000 years before present (a, b); 20,000 BP (c, d); and 50,000 BP (e, f). BP before present. Red areas had fewer species in the past than today, blue areas more’. This has been corrected in the PDF and HTML versions of the Article, and the HTML has been updated to include a corrected version of the Supplementary Information. Data availability statement: The bird species distribution data are available for non-commercial use upon request to BirdLife International (http://datazone.birdlife.org/species/requestdis). Monthly climate and vegetation data covering the past 50,000 years are available on Open Science Framework at DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/9CSJA. The ice sheets data ICE-6G version 1.2 are freely available to download at https://atmosp.physics.utoronto.ca/~peltier/data.php. Code availability statement: The computer code used for this study is available from the corresponding author upon request. Funding Information: The authors are grateful to BirdLife International, NatureServe and all the volunteers who collected and compiled the data on the empirical distribution of bird species. This research was supported through the Max Planck—Yale Centre for Biodiversity Movement and Global Change and from the Knobloch Family Foundation, as well as grants NSF DEB 1441737, DBI 1262600 and NASA NNX11AP72G to W.J., A.M. and R.M.B. were supported by the ERC Consolidator Grant 647787 (‘LocalAdaptation’).
Uncontrolled Keywords: chemistry(all),biochemistry, genetics and molecular biology(all),physics and astronomy(all),sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1600
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups: Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 22 Jul 2024 10:32
Last Modified: 21 Oct 2024 00:52
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/95981
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-14589-2

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