Percentage of species projected to undergo range expansion or experience more suitable climate within their distributions under climate change by the end of the 21st century (‘winners’) versus range contraction or less suitable climate (‘losers’).

Huntley et al. (2008) PLoS ONE 3(1): e1439; Barbet-Massin et al. (2009) Biol. Lett. 11: doi:10.1098/rsbl.2008.0715 ; Hole et al. (2009) Ecol. Lett. 12: 420–431; Araujo et al. (2011) Ecol. Lett. 14: 484–492 ; Bagchi et al. (2013) Glob. Change Biol. 19: 1236–1248 ; Langham et al. (2015) PLoS ONE 10: e0135350.

Recent climate change has already caused species to shift their ranges, with many exhibiting northward shifts (Zuckerberg et al. 2009, Auer & King 2014, Environmental Protection Agency 2014, Virkkala & Lehikoinen 2014, Gillings et al. 2015) and changes in elevation (Archaux 2004, Peh 2007, Zuckerberg et al. 2009, Popy et al. 2010, Maggini et al. 2011, Forero-Medina et al. 2011, Reif & Flousek 2012, Harris et al. 2012, Auer & King 2014).

Further changes in bird distributions are expected in the future; results from studies across the globe show that, on average, there are projected to be more than twice as many species whose populations and distributions may decline under climate change by the end of the century than the number that are expected to increase (Huntley et al. 2008, Barbet-Massin et al. 2009, Hole et al. 2009, Araujo et al. 2011, Bagchi et al. 2013, Langham et al. 2015). These studies use models to determine how species distributions are expected to have changed in response to a range of climatic scenarios.

These results demonstrate the large impact climate change is expected to have on birds across the globe within the next century. In Africa, 62% of species are predicted to lose out (Hole et al. 2009), whilst in Asia it is thought that 88% of species will be negatively affected (Bagchi et al. 2013). This pattern is seen across all regions except North America, where it is predicted that 58.5% of species are expected to gain range by the end of the century (Langham et al. 2015).

This case study is taken from ‘The Messengers: What birds tell us about threats from climate change and solutions for nature and people’. To download the report in full click here.