How a Changing Climate and Disappearing Habitat Impacts a Tropical Bird

Climate change is impacting birds across the world as seasons shift. Now, though, scientists have taken a closer look at the white-collared manakin and have found that habitat degradation and climate shifts may impact this species survival.

Habitat alteration due to forest clearing and climate change threaten wildlife populations throughout the globe. To better understand the interacting effects of this habitat degradation in addition to climate change on bird populations, scientists spent 12 years studying the white-collared manakin.

The white-collared manakin is a fruit-eating tropical bird that can be found in Costa Rica. Several shifts in weather from El Niño and La Niña events resulted in very marked wet and dry annual conditions in the region that allowed the scientists to measure the differences in manakin survival relative to climatic shifts.

So what did the researchers find? During El Niño events when there was dry weather, there were dramatic decreases in manakins' survival. This is probably due to a sparser canopy and reduced fruit production during these dry periods. However, manakins' survival rates soared during wet years associated with La Niña events in young forests. In mature forests, though, the scientists found that there were very stable manakin survival rates regardless of climatic shifts. This could be due to a relatively constant abundance of fruit.

"The complex structure of mature forest is thought to serve as a climatic refuge, buffering fruiting plants from climatic changes resulting in stable manakin survival," said Jared Wolfe, lead author of the new study, in a news release. "Climatic refuges, such as mature tropical forests, may be important for many resident tropical bird species faced with the decreasing availability of mature forests coupled with increases in the severity of El Niño-associated dryness."

The findings reveal a bit more about how these birds respond to both wet and dry periods. This, in turn, may be important for management strategies in the future.

The findings are published in the journal Oecologia.

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