Projecting impacts of anthropogenic climatic change on the bird communities of southern Swedish spruce monocultures: Will the species poor get poorer?

Abstract

The potential impact of climatic change on bird species’ distributions in Europe was recently modeled for several scenarios of projected late 21st century climate. The results indicate mean range shifts of hundreds of kilometres north for many of Europe’s bird species. Here we consider the implications from such distributional shifts for the bird communities of Norway spruce (Picea abies) monocultures in southern Sweden, a forest type likely to remain prevalent despite climate change. Our assessment leads us to three key findings. First, spruce monocultures offers suitable habitat to only two bird species projected to increase their breeding distribution to southern Sweden this century. Second, bird species richness was projected to decline overall, which would accentuate the depauperate nature of these stands. Third, all conifer-associated arboreal granivores, and three of four conifer-associated arboreal insectivores are projected to not occur; reducing both functional richness and functional redundancy. We discuss the implications for avian biodiversity in what is today the most prevalent forest type in southern Sweden and in many regions of Europe.