Current Analogues of Future Climate Indicate the Likely Response of a Sensitive Montane Tropical Avifauna to a Warming World

摘要: Among birds, tropical montane species are likely to be among the most vulnerable climate change, yet little is known about how drives their distributions, nor predict responses temperature increases. Correlative models of species' environmental niches have been widely used changes in distribution, but direct tests relationship between key variables, such as temperature, and actual distributions few. In absence historical data with which compare observations detect shifts, space-for-time substitutions, where warmer locations analogues future conditions, offer an opportunity test for climate. We collected density rainforest birds across elevational gradients northern southern subregions within Australian Wet Tropics (AWT). Using optima calculated from profiles, we detected a significant difference two regions ten 26 species. More showed positive (19 spp.) than negative (7 displacement, median ∼80.6 m analysed that concordant expected due latitudinal differences (∼75.5 m). Models derived broad-scale surfaces comparable performance those based on in-situ measurements, suggesting former sufficient modeling impacts. These findings not only confirm important factor driving these species, also suggest will shift upslope track preferred conditions. Our approach uses offering data-efficient alternative distribution limits gauging constraints, sensitive enough shifts this avifauna response 0.4 degrees. foresee applications urgent task detecting monitoring impacts change biodiversity.