Introduction

Climate change is considered the largest environmental problem of this century, and birds have been a bellwether of the impacts of climate change on animals because their behaviour and population changes have been documented for decades. Since the first edition of this book the increase in studies of the effects of climate change on birds has been exponential, making it difficult for researchers to stay abreast of developments in the field. In this second edition we enlisted leaders in the field to provide up-to-date summaries of the latest advances in their field. The book consists of four sections. In the first section, there is a general introduction to climate and climate change. In the second section, five chapters provide an introduction to methods and data sources for studying climate change and its effects. In the third section, we have chapters that focus on the individual and population consequences of climate change, ranging from changes in physiology and behaviour to shifts in distribution and abundance and long-term evolutionary changes. In the fourth and last section, the chapters focus on interspecific effects of climate change, some of the conservation challenges we face, and a review of how the effects on birds are linked to other taxa. We end with a chapter reviewing future research trends and challenges.