Birds moving up and down slope

            Many scientists have predicted that as the climate warms, most bird species in the Northern Hemisphere will shift their range northward or up the slopes of mountains in order to remain in their preferred climate environment. To learn whether that has already begun to occur in the mountains of New England, a team of University of Massachusetts researchers

William Deluca

analyzed bird census data collected in the White Mountain National Forest as far back as 1993. The scientists found that the data – from 768 sites visited twice each year – did not always follow the expected pattern.

            “We were looking at a relatively short period of time, so we figured we would see the species moving upslope or not at all,” said William Deluca, a research fellow at the Northeast Climate Science Center at UMass. “We actually thought maybe we wouldn’t find anything.”

            He was wrong. He found that 9 of 16 low-elevation species like ovenbirds, black-and-white warblers and hermit thrushes, which breed primarily in deciduous and northern hardwood forests, showed evidence of shifting their upper-elevation boundary upslope an average of 99 meters over the 17-year period of the study. That aligns with the results of similar studies in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the Andes Mountains.

            But when he analyzed the data for the upper elevation species, those like white-throated sparrow, yellow-bellied flycatcher and Swainson’s thrush that prefer to breed in the montane spruce-fir forest, 9 of 11 species shifted their lower-elevation boundary downslope an average of 19 meters. Among upper-elevation species, only the magnolia warbler shifted its upper boundary further upslope.

            “The opposing elevational shifts of two distinct and adjacent bird communities is, to our knowledge, unprecedented and highlights the need for caution when applying conventional expectations to species responses to climate change,” wrote Deluca and co-author David King in the Journal of Ornithology last November.

            The surprising and contrary results also appear to have different explanations. As predicted, the researchers believe the upslope movement of the low-elevation species is a result of the warming climate, which corresponds with climate data from the Mount Washington Observatory indicating that little warming has occurred at high-elevations but significant warming has occurred at mid- and lower-elevations.

            The downward shifting of upper-elevation species appears to be the result of a downslope shift in habitat. Deluca said that recent die-offs of red spruce may have created a void in the habitat of upper-elevation species, causing them to shift downslope. An increase in the abundance of balsam firs near the lower boundaries of the birds’ distribution may also be a contributing factor.

            “Our results aren’t something that a land manager can do much about at any reasonable scale,” Deluca said. “But it helps us understand how these species are responding to the changing environment. We’re now working to understand the mechanism that’s leading to these shifts in distribution. If they’re responding to habitat, maybe there is a management solution.” 

This article first appeared in the summer 2017 issue of Northern Woodlands magazine.