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

澳大利亚在过去18个月中经历了有史以来前所未有的规模和强度的降雨。这场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，否则我们将错过不寻常的潮湿时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，以便在更正常，更干燥的时期进行后续监测。我们计划研究这一罕见事件对繁殖分布和游牧陆生鸟类丰度的影响，即那些没有固定繁殖范围的物种，而是遵循周围景观的资源可用性，只要条件好就繁殖。澳大利亚的陆地游牧鸟类占澳大利亚和世界其他地方陆地游牧物种的大多数。由于以前没有对这类极端气候波动在气候和生境梯度上对陆地物种的影响进行普查，也没有制定计划来监测今年迅速发展的事件，我们有可能错过一个研究一个独特的、正在发生的具有全球重要性的自然事件的机会;在预测未来气候变化对生态系统的影响方面，这一点可能是非常宝贵的。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覆盖较大的气候梯度。我们提出了一系列长距离（1000公里）的样带，研究最近的气候事件对繁殖，分布和丰富的陆地鸟类物种到澳大利亚中部和南部内陆地区，通常是在大陆最干燥的地方的影响。通过选择一系列涵盖从内陆到沿海边缘的气候和环境梯度的样带，我们将在一个大的空间-时间替换梯度上进行采样，迫切需要启动第一个样带，以监测这段丰水时期的物种分布。如果这种监测被推迟了几个月，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，因为有些物种（如黑尾本地母鸡）将在雨季结束后开始繁殖，而蜜鸟，澳大利亚最多样化的雀形目鸟类，以及许多猛禽，如字母翼风筝，现在将开始在春季建立繁殖领地（约6星期后）。我们的主要目标是：在前所未有的水资源供应时期，沿沿着一系列跨越气候和生境梯度的样带收集陆地鸟类物种的点丰度数据，简短地叙述-制定一项今后可以重复的普查战略，气候变化对游牧物种短期和长期种群变化的影响分析和快速发布这些结果，以（i）突出这种气候事件对生态影响的程度，（ii）提供有史以来第一个生态繁荣时期游牧物种的分布图和栖息地关联模型。我们预计这项试点工作将导致以下-资助研究这些气候盛衰周期对游牧和移动的物种的分布和丰度的长期影响。

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.