Skip to main content

Research Repository

Advanced Search

All Outputs (84)

Population responses of bird populations to climate change on two continents vary with species’ ecological traits but not with direction of change in climate suitability (2019)
Journal Article
Mason, L. R., Green, R. E., Howard, C., Stephens, P. A., Willis, S. G., Aunins, A., …Gregory, R. D. (2019). Population responses of bird populations to climate change on two continents vary with species’ ecological traits but not with direction of change in climate suitability. Climatic Change, 157(3-4), 337-354. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-019-02549-9

Climate change is a major global threat to biodiversity with widespread impacts on ecological communities. Evidence for beneficial impacts on populations is perceived to be stronger and more plentiful than that for negative impacts, but few studies h... Read More about Population responses of bird populations to climate change on two continents vary with species’ ecological traits but not with direction of change in climate suitability.

The influence of different aspects of grouse moorland management on nontarget bird assemblages (2019)
Journal Article
Littlewood, N. A., Mason, T. H., Hughes, M., Jacques, R., Whittingham, M. J., & Willis, S. G. (online). The influence of different aspects of grouse moorland management on nontarget bird assemblages. Ecology and Evolution, https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5613

Conflict between stakeholders with opposing interests can hamper biodiversity conservation. When conflicts become entrenched, evidence from applied ecology can reveal new ways forward for their management. In particular, where disagreement exists ove... Read More about The influence of different aspects of grouse moorland management on nontarget bird assemblages.

The limits to population density in birds and mammals (2019)
Journal Article
Stephens, P., Vieira, M., Willis, S., & Carbone, C. (2019). The limits to population density in birds and mammals. Ecology Letters, 22(4), 654-663. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13227

We address two fundamental ecological questions: what are the limits to animal population density and what determines those limits? We develop simple alternative models to predict population limits in relation to body mass. A model assuming that with... Read More about The limits to population density in birds and mammals.

Bioenergy cropland expansion may offset positive effects of climate change mitigation for global vertebrate diversity (2018)
Journal Article
Hof, C., Voskamp, A., Biber, M. F., Böhning-Gaese, K., Engelhardt, E. K., Niamir, A., …Hickler, T. (2018). Bioenergy cropland expansion may offset positive effects of climate change mitigation for global vertebrate diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(52), 13294-13299. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1807745115

Climate and land-use change interactively affect biodiversity. Large-scale expansions of bioenergy have been suggested as an important component for climate change mitigation. Here we use harmonized climate and land-use projections to investigate the... Read More about Bioenergy cropland expansion may offset positive effects of climate change mitigation for global vertebrate diversity.

Tritrophic phenological match-mismatch in space and time (2018)
Journal Article
Burgess, M. D., Smith, K. W., Evans, K. L., Leech, D., Pearce-Higgins, J. W., Branston, C. J., …Phillimore, A. B. (2018). Tritrophic phenological match-mismatch in space and time. Nature Ecology and Evolution, 2, 970-975. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-018-0543-1

Increasing temperatures associated with climate change may generate phenological mismatches that disrupt previously synchronous trophic interactions. Most work on mismatch has focused on temporal trends, whereas spatial variation in the degree of tro... Read More about Tritrophic phenological match-mismatch in space and time.

Flight range, fuel load, and the impact of climate change on the journeys of migrant birds (2018)
Journal Article
Howard, C., Stephens, P., Tobias, J., Sheard, C., Butchart, S., & Willis, S. (2018). Flight range, fuel load, and the impact of climate change on the journeys of migrant birds. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 285(1873), Article 20172329. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2329

Climate change is predicted to increase migration distances for many migratory species, but the physiological and temporal implications of longer migratory journeys have not been explored. Here, we combine information about species' flight range pote... Read More about Flight range, fuel load, and the impact of climate change on the journeys of migrant birds.

Global patterns in the divergence between phylogenetic diversity and species richness in terrestrial birds (2017)
Journal Article
Voskamp, A., Baker, D., Stephens, P., Valdes, P., & Willis, S. (2017). Global patterns in the divergence between phylogenetic diversity and species richness in terrestrial birds. Journal of Biogeography, 44(4), 709-721. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.12916

Aim The conservation value of sites is often based on species richness (SR).However, metrics of phylogenetic diversity (PD) reflect a community’s evolu-tionary potential and reveal the potential for additional conservation valueabove that based purely... Read More about Global patterns in the divergence between phylogenetic diversity and species richness in terrestrial birds.

Forecasting potential routes for movement of endemic birds among important sites for biodiversity in the Albertine Rift under projected climate change (2016)
Journal Article
Bagchi, R., Hole, D. G., Butchart, S. H., Collingham, Y. C., Fishpool, L. D., Plumptre, A. J., …Willis, S. G. (2016). Forecasting potential routes for movement of endemic birds among important sites for biodiversity in the Albertine Rift under projected climate change. Ecography, 41(2), 401-413. https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.02712

The ability of species to shift their distributions in response to climate change may be impeded by lack of suitable climate or habitat between species’ current and future ranges. We examined the potential for climate and forest cover to limit the mo... Read More about Forecasting potential routes for movement of endemic birds among important sites for biodiversity in the Albertine Rift under projected climate change.

Choice of baseline climate data impacts projected species’ responses to climate change (2016)
Journal Article
Baker, D. J., Hartley, A. J., Butchart, S. H., & Willis, S. G. (2016). Choice of baseline climate data impacts projected species’ responses to climate change. Global Change Biology, 22(7), 2392-2404. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13273

Climate data created from historic climate observations are integral to most assessments of potential climate change impacts, and frequently comprise the baseline period used to infer species-climate relationships. They are often also central to down... Read More about Choice of baseline climate data impacts projected species’ responses to climate change.

Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents (2016)
Journal Article
Stephens, P., Mason, L., Green, R., Gregory, R., Sauer, J., Alison, J., …Willis, S. (2016). Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents. Science, 352(6281), 84-87. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aac4858

Global climate change is a major threat to biodiversity. Large-scale analyses have generally focused on the impacts of climate change on the geographic ranges of species and on phenology, the timing of ecological phenomena. We used long-term monitori... Read More about Consistent response of bird populations to climate change on two continents.

Nationwide trophic cascades: changes in avian community structure driven by ungulates (2015)
Journal Article
Palmer, G., Stephens, P., Ward, A., & Willis, S. (2015). Nationwide trophic cascades: changes in avian community structure driven by ungulates. Scientific Reports, 5, Article 15601. https://doi.org/10.1038/srep15601

In recent decades, many ungulate populations have changed dramatically in abundance, resulting in cascading effects across ecosystems. However, studies of such effects are often limited in their spatial and temporal scope. Here, we contrast multi-spe... Read More about Nationwide trophic cascades: changes in avian community structure driven by ungulates.

The drivers of avian abundance: patterns in the relative importance of climate and land use (2015)
Journal Article
Howard, C., Stephens, P., Pearce-Higgins, J., Gregory, R., & Willis, S. (2015). The drivers of avian abundance: patterns in the relative importance of climate and land use. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 24(11), 1249-1260. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12377

Aim: Climate and land use can have important effects on the local abundances of species, but few studies have investigated the relative impacts of these factors. Here, we quantify the relative importance of climate, land use and surrounding populatio... Read More about The drivers of avian abundance: patterns in the relative importance of climate and land use.

Assessing the performance of EU nature legislation in protecting target bird species in an era of climate change (2015)
Journal Article
Sanderson, F., Pople, R., Leronymidou, C., Burfield, I., Gregory, R., Willis, S., …Donald, P. (2016). Assessing the performance of EU nature legislation in protecting target bird species in an era of climate change. Conservation Letters, 9(3), 172-180. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.12196

International legislation forms a cornerstone of conservation, yet its efficacy is rarely quantified. We assess whether species listed on Annex I of the European Union (EU) Birds Directive, for which EU Member States are obliged to implement special... Read More about Assessing the performance of EU nature legislation in protecting target bird species in an era of climate change.

Integrating climate change vulnerability assessments from species distribution modelling and traits based approaches. (2015)
Journal Article
Willis, S., Foden, W., Baker, D., Belle, E., Burgess, N., Carr, J., …Butchart, S. (2015). Integrating climate change vulnerability assessments from species distribution modelling and traits based approaches. Biological Conservation, 190, 167-178. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2015.05.001

To accommodate climate-driven changes in biological communities, conservation plans are increasingly making use of models to predict species’ responses to climate change. To date, species distribution models have been the most commonly used approach... Read More about Integrating climate change vulnerability assessments from species distribution modelling and traits based approaches..

Predicting the spatial distribution of wolf (Canis lupus) breeding areas in a mountainous region of central Italy (2015)
Journal Article
Bassi, E., Willis, S., Passilongo, D., Mattioli, L., & Apollonio, M. (2015). Predicting the spatial distribution of wolf (Canis lupus) breeding areas in a mountainous region of central Italy. PLoS ONE, 10(6), Article e0124698. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0124698

Wolves (Canis lupus) in Italy represent a relict west European population. They are classified as vulnerable by IUCN, though have increased in number and expanded their range in recent decades. Here we use 17 years of monitoring data (from 1993 to 20... Read More about Predicting the spatial distribution of wolf (Canis lupus) breeding areas in a mountainous region of central Italy.

Assessing climate change impacts for vertebrate fauna across the West African protected area network using regionally appropriate climate projections (2015)
Journal Article
Baker, D., Hartley, A., Burgess, N., Butchart, S., Carr, J., Smith, R., …Willis, S. (2015). Assessing climate change impacts for vertebrate fauna across the West African protected area network using regionally appropriate climate projections. Diversity and Distributions, 21(9), 991-1003. https://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12337

Aim We conduct the first assessment of likely future climate change impacts for biodiversity across the West African protected area (PA) network using climate projections that capture important climate regimes (e.g. West African Monsoon) and mesoscal... Read More about Assessing climate change impacts for vertebrate fauna across the West African protected area network using regionally appropriate climate projections.

Assessing species vulnerability to climate change (2015)
Journal Article
Pacifici, M., Foden, W., Visconti, P., Watson, J., Butchart, S., Kovacs, K., …Rondinini, C. (2015). Assessing species vulnerability to climate change. Nature Climate Change, 5, 215-225. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2448

The effects of climate change on biodiversity are increasingly well documented, and many methods have been developed to assess species' vulnerability to climatic changes, both ongoing and projected in the coming decades. To minimize global biodiversi... Read More about Assessing species vulnerability to climate change.

Topographical variation reduces phenological mismatch between a butterfly and its nectar source (2014)
Journal Article
Hindle, B., Kerr, C., Richards, S., & Willis, S. (2015). Topographical variation reduces phenological mismatch between a butterfly and its nectar source. Journal of Insect Conservation, 19(2), 227-236. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10841-014-9713-x

The timing of many biological events, including butterfly imago emergence, has advanced under climate change, with the rate of these phenological changes often differing among taxonomic groups. Such inter-taxa variability can lead to phenological mis... Read More about Topographical variation reduces phenological mismatch between a butterfly and its nectar source.