Kotz Maximilian, Amano Tatsuya, Watson James E M
Barcelona Supercomputing Centre, Barcelona, Spain.
Research Department IV of Complexity Science, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Potsdam, Germany.
Nat Ecol Evol. 2025 Aug 11. doi: 10.1038/s41559-025-02811-7.
Although species exhibit widespread sensitivity to environmental conditions, the extent to which human-driven climate change may have already altered their abundance remains unclear. Here we quantify the impact of climate change on bird populations from across the world by combining models of their response to environmental conditions with a climate attribution framework. We identify a dominant role of intensified heat extremes compared to changes in average temperature and precipitation. Increased interannual exposure to hot extremes reduces annual abundance growth rates most strongly in lower-latitude tropical regions, with effects robust when controlling for changing human industrial pressure and other long-term drivers. Compared to a counterfactual without human-driven climate change, the historical intensification of heat extremes has caused a 25-38% reduction in the level of abundance of tropical birds, which has accumulated from 1950 to 2020. Across observed tropical bird populations, impacts of climate change have typically been larger than direct human pressure, the opposite across sub-tropical regions. Overall, these results showcase how human-driven climate change is already reshaping biodiversity globally and may explain reported declines of birds in undisturbed tropical habitats.
尽管物种对环境条件普遍敏感，但人类驱动的气候变化在多大程度上可能已经改变了它们的数量仍不清楚。在这里，我们通过将鸟类对环境条件的响应模型与气候归因框架相结合，量化了气候变化对全球鸟类种群的影响。我们发现，与平均温度和降水变化相比，极端高温加剧起到了主导作用。在低纬度热带地区，每年暴露于极端高温的增加对年数量增长率的降低影响最为强烈，在控制不断变化的人类工业压力和其他长期驱动因素时，这种影响依然显著。与没有人类驱动的气候变化的反事实情况相比，自1950年至2020年以来，极端高温的历史加剧导致热带鸟类数量水平减少了25%至38%。在观察到的热带鸟类种群中，气候变化的影响通常大于直接的人类压力，而在亚热带地区则相反。总体而言，这些结果表明人类驱动的气候变化已经在全球范围内重塑生物多样性，并可能解释了在未受干扰的热带栖息地中鸟类数量下降的报道。
