scholarly journals Model-Assisted Bird Monitoring Based on Remotely Sensed Ecosystem Functioning and Atlas Data

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 2549 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adrián Regos ◽  
Pablo Gómez-Rodríguez ◽  
Salvador Arenas-Castro ◽  
Luis Tapia ◽  
María Vidal ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Energy Balance ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Remotely Sensed ◽  
Distribution Models ◽  
Atlas Data

Urgent action needs to be taken to halt global biodiversity crisis. To be effective in the implementation of such action, managers and policy-makers need updated information on the status and trends of biodiversity. Here, we test the ability of remotely sensed ecosystem functioning attributes (EFAs) to predict the distribution of 73 bird species with different life-history traits. We run ensemble species distribution models (SDMs) trained with bird atlas data and 12 EFAs describing different dimensions of carbon cycle and surface energy balance. Our ensemble SDMs—exclusively based on EFAs—hold a high predictive capacity across 71 target species (up to 0.94 and 0.79 of Area Under the ROC curve and true skill statistic (TSS)). Our results showed the life-history traits did not significantly affect SDM performance. Overall, minimum Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) and maximum Albedo values (descriptors of primary productivity and energy balance) were the most important predictors across our bird community. Our approach leverages the existing atlas data and provides an alternative method to monitor inter-annual bird habitat dynamics from space in the absence of long-term biodiversity monitoring schemes. This study illustrates the great potential that satellite remote sensing can contribute to the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and to the Essential Biodiversity Variables framework (EBV class “Species distribution”).

scholarly journals Remotely Sensed Variables of Ecosystem Functioning Support Robust Predictions of Abundance Patterns for Rare Species

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 2086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Salvador Arenas-Castro ◽  
Adrián Regos ◽  
João F. Gonçalves ◽  
Domingo Alcaraz-Segura ◽  
João Honrado
Keyword(s):  
Species Distribution ◽  
Ecosystem Functioning ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Predictive Accuracy ◽  
Species Abundance ◽  
Habitats Directive ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Distribution Models ◽  
Essential Information ◽  
Abundance Patterns

Global environmental changes are affecting both the distribution and abundance of species at an unprecedented rate. To assess these effects, species distribution models (SDMs) have been greatly developed over the last decades, while species abundance models (SAMs) have generally received less attention even though these models provide essential information for conservation management. With population abundance defined as an essential biodiversity variable (EBV), SAMs could offer spatially explicit predictions of species abundance across space and time. Satellite-derived ecosystem functioning attributes (EFAs) are known to inform on processes controlling species distribution, but they have not been tested as predictors of species abundance. In this study, we assessed the usefulness of SAMs calibrated with EFAs (as process-related variables) to predict local abundance patterns for a rare and threatened species (the narrow Iberian endemic ‘Gerês lily’ Iris boissieri; protected under the European Union Habitats Directive), and to project inter-annual fluctuations of predicted abundance. We compared the predictive accuracy of SAMs calibrated with climate (CLI), topography (DEM), land cover (LCC), EFAs, and combinations of these. Models fitted only with EFAs explained the greatest variance in species abundance, compared to models based only on CLI, DEM, or LCC variables. The combination of EFAs and topography slightly increased model performance. Predictions of the inter-annual dynamics of species abundance were related to inter-annual fluctuations in climate, which holds important implications for tracking global change effects on species abundance. This study underlines the potential of EFAs as robust predictors of biodiversity change through population size trends. The combination of EFA-based SAMs and SDMs would provide an essential toolkit for species monitoring programs.

Finessing atlas data for species distribution models

2011 ◽  
Vol 17 (6) ◽  
pp. 1173-1185 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidin Niamir ◽  
Andrew K. Skidmore ◽  
Albertus G. Toxopeus ◽  
Antonio R. Muñoz ◽  
Raimundo Real
Keyword(s):  
Species Distribution ◽  
Species Distribution Models ◽  
Distribution Models ◽  
Atlas Data

scholarly journals Deep Multi-species Embedding

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Di Chen ◽  
Yexiang Xue ◽  
Daniel Fink ◽  
Shuo Chen ◽  
Carla P. Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Neural Network ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Deep Neural Network ◽  
Species Distribution Models ◽  
Habitat Preferences ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Additional Contribution ◽  
Distribution Models

Understanding how species are distributed across landscapes over time is a fundamental question in biodiversity research. Unfortunately, most species distribution models only target a single species at a time, despite strong ecological evidence that species are not independently distributed. We propose Deep Multi-Species Embedding (DMSE), which jointly embeds vectors corresponding to multiple species as well as vectors representing environmental covariates into a common high-dimensional feature space via a deep neural network. Applied to bird observational data from the citizen science project eBird, we demonstrate how the DMSE model discovers inter-species relationships to outperform single-species distribution models (random forests and SVMs) as well as competing multi-label models. Additionally, we demonstrate the benefit of using a deep neural network to extract features within the embedding and show how they improve the predictive performance of species distribution modelling. An important domain contribution of the DMSE model is the ability to discover and describe species interactions while simultaneously learning the shared habitat preferences among species. As an additional contribution, we provide a graphical embedding of hundreds of bird species in the Northeast US.

scholarly journals Variation in Demography and Life-History Strategies Across the Range of a Declining Mountain Bird Species

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnaud G. Barras ◽  
Sébastien Blache ◽  
Michael Schaub ◽  
Raphaël Arlettaz
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Life History Strategies ◽  
Adult Survival ◽  
Northwestern Part ◽  
European Alps ◽  
Demographic Processes

Species- and population-specific responses to their environment may depend to a large extent on the spatial variation in life-history traits and in demographic processes of local population dynamics. Yet, those parameters and their variability remain largely unknown for many cold-adapted species, which are exposed to particularly rapid rates of environmental change. Here, we compared the demographic traits and dynamics for an emblematic bird species of European mountain ecosystems, the ring ouzel (Turdus torquatus). Using integrated population models fitted in a Bayesian framework, we estimated the survival probability, productivity and immigration of two populations from the Western European Alps, in France (over 11 years) and Switzerland (over 6 years). Juvenile apparent survival was lower and immigration rate higher in the Swiss compared to the French population, with the temporal variation in population growth rate driven by different demographic processes. Yet, when compared to populations in the northwestern part of the range, in Scotland, these two Alpine populations both showed a much lower productivity and higher adult survival, indicating a slower life-history strategy. Our results suggest that demographic characteristics can substantially vary across the discontinuous range of this passerine species, essentially due to contrasted, possibly locally evolved life-history strategies. This study therefore raises the question of whether flexibility in life-history traits is widespread among boreo-alpine species and if it might provide adaptive potential for coping with current environmental change.

scholarly journals What do we know about the life-history traits of widely hunted tropical mammals?

Oryx ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 670-676
Author(s):  
Nathalie van Vliet ◽  
Robert Nasi
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Species Distribution ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Local People ◽  
Mammal Species ◽  
Density Dependent ◽  
Distribution Ranges ◽  
Technical Innovations ◽  
Parameter Values

AbstractWe synthesize information on parameters useful for managing the hunting of two common mammal species that are important for local people in the Neotropics and Africa: Cuniculus paca and Philantomba monticola, respectively. We highlight the scarcity of data available on the parameters needed to manage these two species sustainably. As most of the studies were conducted > 40 years ago, we stress the need to supplement the information available using methodological and technical innovations. In particular, we call for new assessments covering the possible variations in parameter values across the species’ distribution ranges, and covering various anthropogenic contexts, to test density-dependent and compensatory processes that may explain the resilience of these species to hunting.

Use of taxonomy to delineate spatial extent of atlas data for species distribution models

2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 227-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aidin Niamir ◽  
Andrew K. Skidmore ◽  
Albertus G. Toxopeus ◽  
Raimundo Real
Keyword(s):  
Species Distribution ◽  
Species Distribution Models ◽  
Spatial Extent ◽  
Distribution Models ◽  
Atlas Data

scholarly journals The influence of phylogeny and life history on telomere lengths and telomere rate of change among bird species: a meta-analysis

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
François Criscuolo ◽  
F. Stephen Dobson ◽  
Quentin Schull
Keyword(s):  
Life History ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Telomere Length ◽  
Life History Traits ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Bird Species ◽  
Rate Of Change ◽  
Pace Of Life ◽  
Life History Variables ◽  
Telomere Dynamics

Longevity is highly variable among animal species, and has coevolved with other of life-history traits, like body size and rates of reproduction. Telomeres, through their erosion over time, are one of the cell mechanisms that produce senescence at the cell level, and might even have an influence on the rate of ageing in whole organisms. However, uneroded telomeres are also risk factors of cell immortalization. The associations of telomere lengths, their rate of change, and life-history traits independent of body size are largely underexplored for birds. To test associations of life-history traits and telomere dynamics, we conducted a phylogenetic meta-analysis using studies of 53 species of birds. We restricted analyses to studies that applied the telomere restriction fragment length (TRF) method, and examined relationships between mean telomere length at the chick (Chick TL) and adult (Adult TL) stages, the mean rate of change in telomere length during life (TROC), and life-history traits. We examined 3 principal components of 12 life-history variables that represented: body size (PC1), the slow-fast continuum of pace-of-life (PC2) and post-fledging parental care (PC3). Phylogeny had at best a small-to-medium influence on Adult and Chick TL (r² = 0.190 and 0.138, respectively), but a substantial influence on TROC (r² = 0.688). Phylogeny strongly influenced life histories: PC1 (r² = 0.828), PC2 (0.838), and PC3 (0.613). Adult TL and Chick TL were poorly associated with the life-history variables. TROC, however, was negatively and moderate-to-strongly associated with PC2 (unadjusted r = -0.340; with phylogenetic correction, r = -0.490). Independent of body size, long-lived species with smaller clutches and slower embryonic rate of growth may exhibited less change in telomere length over their lifetimes. We suggest that telomere lengths may have diverged even among closely avian related species, yet telomere dynamics are strongly linked to the pace of life.

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