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
