Collaborative Research: MRA: Estimating and forecasting nonstationary, multi-scale climate and land-use effects on avian communities

鸟类在全球范围内正在减少，据估计，在过去的50年里，仅在北美就有30亿只鸟类死亡。该项目的目标是研究气候和土地利用变化这两个主要的全球变化驱动因素已经并将继续影响美国各地繁殖的鸟类。这项研究结合了来自四个全国性数据来源(国家生态观测网[NEON]、eBird、繁殖鸟类调查和国家公园管理局调查和监测计划)的鸟类观察，以估计过去20年气候和土地利用变化对东部森林、西部森林、干旱区、生境通才、草原和城市/郊区六个鸟类群落中数百个物种的个体物种发生和生物多样性指标的历史影响。利用最近的估计，该项目将在本世纪中叶和本世纪末一系列预测的气候和土地使用情景下预测鸟类的发生和分布。预报将被用来在全美多个空间尺度上识别脆弱物种和鸟类群落。物种预测将考虑到多种不确定性来源，这对于理解在面临持续的全球变化时，保护努力在哪里可能产生最大影响至关重要。这项工作的结果将通过一个基于网络的工具获得，该工具将为公众和资源管理人员提供关于脆弱和有弹性的鸟类群落的详细信息，以加强全国范围内的鸟类管理。一名博士后和研究生将接受数据科学和统计方法方面的培训。本研究致力于通过量化环境驱动因素的多尺度影响，同时合并独立的数据源，通过开发一个“大系统综合群落占用模型”，来评估和预测个体物种和整个生态群落的发生动态。该模型将应用于北美鸟类区系，以研究几个气候和土地利用变量对整个21世纪美国大陆生物地理群落物种动态的影响。结果将导致(1)对过去20年鸟类物种分布和生物多样性指标的宏观了解；(2)在合理的气候和土地利用情景下，对美国大陆从地方到区域尺度的分布动态进行预测，从而评估物种和群落对潜在全球变化的脆弱性。在该项目期间开发的方法论方法将扩大社区层面的分析范围，以涵盖物种加速丧失时代中时空生物多样性变化的宏观驱动因素。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Birds are declining worldwide, with an estimated loss of three billion individuals in North America alone over the last 50 years. The goal of this project is to examine how two major global change drivers, climate and land-use change, have affected – and will continue to affect – breeding birds across the United States. The research combines bird observations from four nationwide data sources (National Ecological Observatory Network [NEON], eBird, Breeding Bird Survey, and National Park Service Inventory and Monitoring Program) to estimate the historical impacts of climate and land-use change on individual species’ occurrences and biodiversity metrics over the last two decades for hundreds of species within six avian communities: eastern forests, western forests, aridlands, habitat generalists, grasslands, and urban/suburban. Using estimates from the recent past, the project will then forecast bird occurrences and distributions under a range of projected climate and land-use scenarios during the mid-century and end-of-century. Forecasts will be used to identify vulnerable species and bird communities at multiple spatial scales across the United States. Species forecasts will account for multiple sources of uncertainty, which is critical for understanding where conservation efforts could have the greatest impact in the face of ongoing global change. Findings from this work will be available via a web-based tool, which will provide the public and resource managers with detailed information on both vulnerable and resilient bird communities to enhance avian stewardship nationwide. A post-doc and graduate student will be trained in data science and statistical methods. This research focuses on evaluating and forecasting the occurrence dynamics of both individual species and entire ecological communities by quantifying the multi-scale effects of environmental drivers, while simultaneously merging independent data sources, via development of a ‘macrosystems integrated community occupancy model.’ The model will be applied to North American avifauna to examine the effects of several climate and land-use variables on the dynamics of species across biogeographical communities in the continental United States throughout the 21st century. The results will lead to (1) a macroscale understanding of bird species’ distributions and biodiversity metrics during the last two decades; and (2) forecasts of distribution dynamics from local to regional scales across the continental United States under plausible climate and land-use scenarios, allowing for assessments of species and community vulnerabilities to potential global changes. The methodological approaches developed during this project will expand the scope of community-level analyses to encompass macroscale drivers of spatiotemporal biodiversity changes during an era of accelerated species loss.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.