The influence of the recent La Nina climate event on nomadic terrestrial birds in Australia's interior: A pilot study

在过去的18个月里，澳大利亚经历了前所未有的规模和强度的降雨。这次降雨事件现在突然结束了，进入澳大利亚内陆的大部分地区刚刚成为可能。在前所未有的生态繁荣时期进入澳大利亚内陆，当罕见的大规模开花和繁殖事件发生时，为我们提供了一个独特的研究机会。然而，我们需要迅速采取行动，开始监测这一迅速发展的事件，否则我们将错过异常潮湿期后的第一个繁殖季节，我们将失去在这一时期收集数据的机会，而随后在更正常、更干燥时期的监测可以与此进行比较。我们计划研究这一罕见事件对游牧陆鸟的繁殖分布和丰度的影响，即那些没有固定的繁殖范围，而是跟随景观周围资源的可用性，在有利条件出现时繁殖的物种。在澳大利亚和世界其他地方，澳大利亚的游牧陆地鸟类占陆地游牧物种的大多数。由于以前没有对这些类型的极端气候波动在气候和栖息地梯度上对陆地物种的影响进行普查，并且没有制定计划来监测今年快速发展的事件，我们有可能错过研究具有全球重要性的独特和正在发生的自然事件的机会；它在预测未来气候变化对生态系统的影响方面可能是无价的。由于澳大利亚气候的性质，当你从海岸向内陆前进时，从潮湿到干燥的环境有一个陡峭的梯度，这样你就可以在相对较短的距离内跨越较大的气候梯度。我们提出了一系列长距离（1000公里）的样带来研究最近的气候事件对澳大利亚中部和南部内陆地区陆鸟物种的繁殖、分布和丰度的影响，这些地区通常是该大陆最干旱的地方。通过选择一系列覆盖从内陆到沿海边缘的气候和环境梯度的样带，我们将在一个大的时空替换梯度上进行采样。在这段丰水时期，迫切需要开始第一次样带监测物种分布。如果这种监控延迟了几个月，那么我们很可能会错过这个重要的事件，并失去一个重要的基线数据集来比较后续的变化。我们必须尽快开始这项工作，因为一些物种（如黑尾本地母鸡）将在雨季结束后不久开始繁殖，而蜜鸟，澳大利亚最多样化的雀鸟群以及许多猛禽，如信翼风筝，现在将开始在春天（大约6周的时间）开始建立繁殖领地。我们的主要目标是：在一个前所未有的水资源供应时期，沿着一系列跨越气候和栖息地梯度的样带收集陆鸟物种的点丰度数据，将短期物种发生数据与气候和环境变量联系起来。制定一项可以在未来重复的普查策略，以检测气候变化对游牧物种的短期和长期人口变化的影响。快速分析和公布这些结果，以(i)强调气候事件对生态影响的重要性，（ii）提供生态繁荣时期游牧物种的首次分布图和栖息地关联模型。我们预计，这项试点工作将带来后续资金，用于研究这些气候盛衰周期对游牧和流动物种的分布和丰富程度的长期影响。

Australia has experienced over the past 18 months rainfall of a scale and intensity that is unprecedented in recorded history. This rainfall event has now abruptly come to an end, and access to large parts of the Australian interior has just become possible The access to the Australian interior at a time of unprecedented ecological boom, when rare mass flowering and breeding events occur, presents us with a unique research opportunity. However, we need to act fast to initiate monitoring of this rapidly unfolding event or we will miss the first breeding season following the unusual wet period, and we will lose an opportunity to collect data at this period, against which subsequent monitoring during more normal, drier periods can be compared.We plan to study the impacts of this rare event on the breeding distribution and abundance of nomadic terrestrial birds, i.e. those species that have no fixed breeding range but instead follow the availability of resources around the landscape, breeding whenever good conditions arise. Australia's nomadic terrestrial land-birds make up the majority of terrestrial nomadic species, in Australia and elsewhere around the world. With no previous census of the impacts of these types of extreme climatic fluctuations on the terrestrial species across climatic and habitat gradients, and with no plans in place to monitor this year's rapidly progressing events, we are in danger of missing out on an opportunity to study an unique and unfolding natural event of global importance; one that could prove invaluable in projecting the impacts of future climate change on ecosystems.Because of the nature of Australia's climate, there is a steep gradient from wet to dry environments as you progress inland from the coast, such that you can cover large climatic gradients in relatively short distances. We propose a series of long-distance (1000km) transects to study the impacts of the recent climate events on the breeding, distribution and abundance of terrestrial bird species into the central and southern interior regions of Australia, normally the driest places in the continent. By selecting a series of transects covering climatic and environmental gradients from the interior towards the coastal margins, we will sample across a large space-for-time replacement gradient.The first transects need to be initiated urgently to monitor species distributions during this period of abundant water. If this monitoring is delayed even by a couple more months, then it is likely that we will miss this important event, and lose an important baseline dataset against which to compare subsequent changes. It is imperative that we commence the work shortly, as some species (such as black-tailed native hen) will begin to breed soon after the rains have finished whereas honeyeaters, the most diverse passerine bird group in Australia as well as many raptors such as letter-winged kites will now be starting to set up territories for breeding in the spring (which occurs in about 6 weeks time).Our main objectives are:To collect point abundance data for terrestrial bird species along a series of transects spanning climatic and habitat gradients during a period of unprecedented water availability, to relate short-term species occurrence data to climatic and environmental variables.To put in place a census strategy that can be repeated in the future to detect the impacts of climatic changes on both short- and long-term population changes in nomadic speciesTo analyse and publish these results quickly to (i) highlight the magnitude of the ecological impacts of this climatic events and (ii) provide the first ever distribution maps and habitat association models for nomadic species in an ecological boom time.We anticipate that this pilot work will lead to follow-on funding to study the longer term impacts of these climatic boom-bust cycles on the distribution and abundance of nomadic and mobile species.