scholarly journals No evidence for disruption of global patterns of nest predation in shorebirds

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bulla ◽  
Jeroen Reneerkens ◽  
Emily L. Weiser ◽  
Aleksandr Sokolov ◽  
Audrey R. Taylor ◽  
...  

AbstractKubelka et al. (Science, 9 November 2018, p. 680-683) claim that climate change has disrupted patterns of nest predation in shorebirds. They report that predation rates have increased since the 1950s, especially in the Arctic. We describe methodological problems with their analyses and argue that there is no solid statistical support for their claims.

Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 364 (6445) ◽  
pp. eaaw8529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bulla ◽  
Jeroen Reneerkens ◽  
Emily L. Weiser ◽  
Aleksandr Sokolov ◽  
Audrey R. Taylor ◽  
...  

Kubelka et al. (Reports, 9 November 2018, p. 680) claim that climate change has disrupted patterns of nest predation in shorebirds. They report that predation rates have increased since the 1950s, especially in the Arctic. We describe methodological problems with their analyses and argue that there is no solid statistical support for their claims.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Bulla ◽  
Mihai Valcu ◽  
Bart Kempenaers

SummaryMany shorebird species are rapidly declining (Piersma et al. 2016; Munro 2017; Studds et al. 2017), but it is not always clear why. Deteriorating and disappearing habitat, e.g. due to intensive agriculture (Donal et al. 2001; Kentie et al. 2013; Kentie et al. 2018), river regulation (Nebel et al. 2008) or mudflat reclamation (Ma et al. 2014; Larson 2017), and hunting (Reed et al. 2018; Gallo-Cajiao et al. 2020) are some of the documented causes. A recent study suggests yet another possible cause of shorebird decline: a global increase in nest predation (Kubelka et al. 2018). The authors compiled an impressive dataset on patterns of nest predation in shorebirds and their analyses suggest that global patterns of nest predation have been disrupted by climate change, particularly in the Arctic. They go as far as to conclude that the Arctic might have become an ecological trap (Kubelka et al. 2018). Because these findings might have far-reaching consequences for conservation and related political decisions, we scrutinized the study and concluded that the main conclusions of Kubelka et al. (2018) are invalid (Bulla et al. 2019a). The authors then responded by reaffirming their conclusions (Kubelka et al. 2019b).Here, we evaluate some of Kubelka et al.’s (2019b) responses, including their recent erratum (2020), and show that the main concerns about the original study still hold. Specifically, (1) we reaffirm that Kubelka et al.’s (2018) original findings are confounded by study site. Hence, their conclusions are over-confident because of pseudo-replication. (2) We reiterate that there is no statistical support for the assertion that predation rate has changed in a different way in the Arctic compared to other regions. The relevant test is an interaction between a measure of time (year or period) and a measure of geography (e.g., Arctic vs the rest of the world). The effect of such an interaction is weak, uncertain and statistically non-significant, which undermines Kubelka et al.’s (2018) key conclusion. (3) We further confirm that the suggested general increase in predation rates over time is at best a weak and uncertain trend. The most parsimonious hypothesis for the described results is that the temporal changes in predation rate are an artefact of temporal changes in methodology and data quality. Using only high-quality data, i.e. directly calculated predation rates, reveals no overall temporal trend in predation rate. Below we elaborate in detail on each of these points.We conclude that (i) there is no evidence whatsoever that the pattern in the Arctic is different from that in the rest of the world and (ii) there is no solid evidence for an increase in predation rate over time. While we commend Kubelka et al. for compiling and exploring the data, we posit that the data underlying their study, and perhaps all currently available data, are not sufficient (or of sufficient quality) to test their main hypotheses. We call for standardized and consistent data collection protocols and experimental validation of current methods for estimating nesting success.


Science ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 362 (6415) ◽  
pp. 680-683 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vojtěch Kubelka ◽  
Miroslav Šálek ◽  
Pavel Tomkovich ◽  
Zsolt Végvári ◽  
Robert P. Freckleton ◽  
...  

Ongoing climate change is thought to disrupt trophic relationships, with consequences for complex interspecific interactions, yet the effects of climate change on species interactions are poorly understood, and such effects have not been documented at a global scale. Using a single database of 38,191 nests from 237 populations, we found that shorebirds have experienced a worldwide increase in nest predation over the past 70 years. Historically, there existed a latitudinal gradient in nest predation, with the highest rates in the tropics; however, this pattern has been recently reversed in the Northern Hemisphere, most notably in the Arctic. This increased nest predation is consistent with climate-induced shifts in predator-prey relationships.


Science ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 364 (6445) ◽  
pp. eaaw9893
Author(s):  
Vojtěch Kubelka ◽  
Miroslav Šálek ◽  
Pavel Tomkovich ◽  
Zsolt Végvári ◽  
Robert P. Freckleton ◽  
...  

Bulla et al. dispute our main conclusion that the global pattern of nest predation is disrupted in shorebirds. We disagree with Bulla et al.’s conclusions and contest the robustness of their outcomes. We reaffirm our results that provide clear evidence that nest predation has increased significantly in shorebirds, especially in the Arctic.


Author(s):  
Sergei Soldatenko ◽  
Sergei Soldatenko ◽  
Genrikh Alekseev ◽  
Genrikh Alekseev ◽  
Alexander Danilov ◽  
...  

Every aspect of human operations faces a wide range of risks, some of which can cause serious consequences. By the start of 21st century, mankind has recognized a new class of risks posed by climate change. It is obvious, that the global climate is changing, and will continue to change, in ways that affect the planning and day to day operations of businesses, government agencies and other organizations and institutions. The manifestations of climate change include but not limited to rising sea levels, increasing temperature, flooding, melting polar sea ice, adverse weather events (e.g. heatwaves, drought, and storms) and a rise in related problems (e.g. health and environmental). Assessing and managing climate risks represent one of the most challenging issues of today and for the future. The purpose of the risk modeling system discussed in this paper is to provide a framework and methodology to quantify risks caused by climate change, to facilitate estimates of the impact of climate change on various spheres of human activities and to compare eventual adaptation and risk mitigation strategies. The system integrates both physical climate system and economic models together with knowledge-based subsystem, which can help support proactive risk management. System structure and its main components are considered. Special attention is paid to climate risk assessment, management and hedging in the Arctic coastal areas.


2021 ◽  
Vol 80 (2) ◽  
pp. 431-437
Author(s):  
Meredith L. Weiss

Much of the work of political science revolves around institutions—the structures through which politics happens. Leaders enter the frame, of course, but often as institutions in human form: presidents, premiers, populists, and mobilizers who serve to channel and direct who does what and what they do, much like an agency or law. We might trace this pseudo-structural, largely mechanical reading of human agency to political scientists of an earlier era: the behavioralists of the 1950s and 1960s. James C. Scott began his career as just such a scholar. For his dissertation-turned-book, Political Ideology in Malaysia: Reality and the Beliefs of an Elite, Scott surveyed a gaggle of Malaysian bureaucrats to examine, effectively, the extent to which their values and assumptions supported or subverted the new democracy they served. Although itself fairly prosaic, that work foreshadows the political grime and games that soon pulled Scott in more promising directions theoretically, whether scrutinizing Southeast Asia or global patterns: disentangling structure from norms, finding agency around the margins of class and state, and rethinking how power looks and functions.


Author(s):  
Hyun Min Sung ◽  
Jisun Kim ◽  
Sungbo Shim ◽  
Jeong-byn Seo ◽  
Sang-Hoon Kwon ◽  
...  

AbstractThe National Institute of Meteorological Sciences-Korea Meteorological Administration (NIMS-KMA) has participated in the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project (CMIP) and provided long-term simulations using the coupled climate model. The NIMS-KMA produces new future projections using the ensemble mean of KMA Advanced Community Earth system model (K-ACE) and UK Earth System Model version1 (UKESM1) simulations to provide scientific information of future climate changes. In this study, we analyze four experiments those conducted following the new shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) based scenarios to examine projected climate change in the twenty-first century. Present day (PD) simulations show high performance skill in both climate mean and variability, which provide a reliability of the climate models and reduces the uncertainty in response to future forcing. In future projections, global temperature increases from 1.92 °C to 5.20 °C relative to the PD level (1995–2014). Global mean precipitation increases from 5.1% to 10.1% and sea ice extent decreases from 19% to 62% in the Arctic and from 18% to 54% in the Antarctic. In addition, climate changes are accelerating toward the late twenty-first century. Our CMIP6 simulations are released to the public through the Earth System Grid Federation (ESGF) international data sharing portal and are used to support the establishment of the national adaptation plan for climate change in South Korea.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah T. Saalfeld ◽  
Brooke L. Hill ◽  
Christine M. Hunter ◽  
Charles J. Frost ◽  
Richard B. Lanctot

AbstractClimate change in the Arctic is leading to earlier summers, creating a phenological mismatch between the hatching of insectivorous birds and the availability of their invertebrate prey. While phenological mismatch would presumably lower the survival of chicks, climate change is also leading to longer, warmer summers that may increase the annual productivity of birds by allowing adults to lay nests over a longer period of time, replace more nests that fail, and provide physiological relief to chicks (i.e., warmer temperatures that reduce thermoregulatory costs). However, there is little information on how these competing ecological processes will ultimately impact the demography of bird populations. In 2008 and 2009, we investigated the survival of chicks from initial and experimentally-induced replacement nests of arcticola Dunlin (Calidris alpina) breeding near Utqiaġvik, Alaska. We monitored survival of 66 broods from 41 initial and 25 replacement nests. Based on the average hatch date of each group, chick survival (up to age 15 days) from replacement nests (Ŝi = 0.10; 95% CI = 0.02–0.22) was substantially lower than initial nests (Ŝi = 0.67; 95% CI = 0.48–0.81). Daily survival rates were greater for older chicks, chicks from earlier-laid clutches, and during periods of greater invertebrate availability. As temperature was less important to daily survival rates of shorebird chicks than invertebrate availability, our results indicate that any physiological relief experienced by chicks will likely be overshadowed by the need for adequate food. Furthermore, the processes creating a phenological mismatch between hatching of shorebird young and invertebrate emergence ensures that warmer, longer breeding seasons will not translate into abundant food throughout the longer summers. Thus, despite having a greater opportunity to nest later (and potentially replace nests), young from these late-hatching broods will likely not have sufficient food to survive. Collectively, these results indicate that warmer, longer summers in the Arctic are unlikely to increase annual recruitment rates, and thus unable to compensate for low adult survival, which is typically limited by factors away from the Arctic-breeding grounds.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 648
Author(s):  
Stanislav Myslenkov ◽  
Vladimir Platonov ◽  
Alexander Kislov ◽  
Ksenia Silvestrova ◽  
Igor Medvedev

The recurrence of extreme wind waves in the Kara Sea strongly influences the Arctic climate change. The period 2000–2010 is characterized by significant climate warming, a reduction of the sea ice in the Arctic. The main motivation of this research to assess the impact of climate change on storm activity over the past 39 years in the Kara Sea. The paper presents the analysis of wave climate and storm activity in the Kara Sea based on the results of numerical modeling. A wave model WAVEWATCH III is used to reconstruct wind wave fields for the period from 1979 to 2017. The maximum significant wave height (SWH) for the whole period amounts to 9.9 m. The average long-term SWH for the ice-free period does not exceed 1.3 m. A significant linear trend shows an increase in the storm wave frequency for the period from 1979 to 2017. It is shown that trends in the storm activity of the Kara Sea are primarily regulated by the ice. Analysis of the extreme storm events showed that the Pareto distribution is in the best agreement with the data. However, the extreme events with an SWH more than 6‒7 m deviate from the Pareto distribution.


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