Worldpopulation>7,000,000,000

Halfofpopulationliveincities

Citizen science as an essential tool for studying the impacts of climate change on birds

Benjamin ZuckerbergDepartment of Forest and Wildlife Ecology

University of Wisconsin‐Madison

Morethan40%infarmland

Anthropocene

RisingtemperatureAlteredprecipitationMilderwintersEarlierspringsExtremeweather

Modern Climate Change

Long‐termWidespread Observers

Human Network

Dawn of Citizen Science

PublishAnalysisAnalysisDataDataQuestionQuestion

Scientist Scientist ScientistScientist/ Volunteer Scientist/Volunteer Volunteer

BirdsNumerousIdentifiable

Diverse

BirdsNumerousIdentifiable

DiverseCulture

Climate Change and Birds

RangeshiftsChangesinmigrationCommunitiesExtremeevents

Range Shifts

Firstatlasesof1960s400atlasesLocaltocontinentalOver68%arerepeat

Bird Atlases

Carolina Wren1980‐1985Carolina Wren2000‐2005

Global Patterns

Sources: Thomas and Lennon 1999, Brommer 2004, Hitch and Leberg 2007, Zuckerberg et al. 2009

Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count

December 25, 1900             Participants: 27                       Counts: 25                          Birds reported: ~19,000 Number of species: 90

114th Annual CBC                            Participants: 71,659Counts: 2,480Birds reported: 66,243,371Number of species: 2,403

J. Fishers

Winter Bird Ranges

Northern boundariesNorthward range shifts

S. RamirezSources: Root 1998, La Sorte and Thompson 2007

Howard

North American Breeding Bird Survey

Beganin1966Annualroad‐sidecounts40kmlong,50stopsOver3,000surveysPopulationtrends

Future Climatic Suitability

300 species will lose more than half their climate space by late century

Source: Langham et al.  2015

John Picken

Source: Distler et al.  2015

Future Climatic Suitability

Winter BirdSpeciesRichness

BreedingBirdSpeciesRichness

1990‐2015~ 10,000 sites per year~ 110,000 checklists per year

Southeast

Mid‐Atlantic

Great Lakes

Reshufflingofbirdcommunities

Warm‐adaptedbirdsSmaller‐bodiedSoutherlyIncreasing

Sources: Princé and Zuckerberg 2015

More than half of observed animal range boundaries have already shown a

response to modern climate change

Range Shifts

Sources: Thomas et al. 2010

Spring Migration

JanuaryAMRO

January

No birdsFew birdsMany birds

FebruaryAMRO

February

No birdsFew birdsMany birds

MarchAMRO

March

No birdsFew birdsMany birds

Earlier Spring Arrival

SpringarrivalShort‐distancemigrants

Sources: Zuckerberg et al. 2015

Dating backto1960sThousandsofnestrecordcardsEarliernesting

Earlier Nesting

Sources: Dunn and Winkler 1999

Extreme Weather Events

McNeal

Drought“pushes”birdstorangeedges

Sources: Bateman et al. 2015

25,000,000observationspermonth

Geography of Early Arrival

ArrivaladayearliereverydegreeofwarmingEarlierarrivalatsoutherlylatitudesMoresensitiveinlessseasonalenvironments

Sources: Hurlbert and Liang 2012

Climate Change and Birds

RangeshiftsChangesinmigrationCommunitiesExtremeevents

Climate Change and Birds

ScienceatbroadscalesLong‐termmonitoringScientificknowledge“Invisible”effort

Sources: Cooper et al. 2015

Future of Citizen Science

MobileapplicationsandcrowdsourcingGlobalcitizen‐sciencecommunity

Fusionofdisciplines

Anthropocene • Citizen Science

Anerabornofoutofnecessity

AwindowtonatureValue

EngagementEducation

CommunicationRene Prochelle, FeederWatcher, 

23 yearsOver 200  checklists

Become a citizen scientist!CitizenscientistsChristmasBirdCount(Audubon)NorthAmericaBreedingBirdSurvey(USGS)ProjectFeederWatch(CornellLabofOrnithologyandBirdStudiesCanada)

LabMembers(pastandpresent)ChrisLatimer,KarinePrincé,LarsPomara,EricRoss,IlonaNaujokaitis‐Lewis,LisaMcCauley,JohnClare,MichaelHardy,BecketHills,SeanSultaire,AmyShipley,KimberlyThompson,LarryWerner,AlyseKreuger,CodyLane,ColleenMiller

CollaboratorsDavidBonter,WesleyHochachka,DanielFink,FrankLaSorte,JanisDickinson,CarenCooper,RickBonney,WaltKoenig,SteveKelling,JonPauli,ZachPeery,VolkerRadeloff,AnnaPidgeon,SILVISlab,PhilTownsend,WilliamPorter,MartaJarzyna,JulioBetancourt,CourtenayStrong,MichaelNotaro

FundingAgenciesLandscapeConservationCooperatives,NASA,NSF,WildlifeHealthCenter,WIDNR,NortheastClimateScienceCenter,UWMadison

CitizenScience.orgDataONE.orgCitSci.org