Project: Conservation policy in a changing world: integrating citizen science data from national monitoring schemes to model impacts of global change scenarios

Acronym	Future BirdScenarios (Reference Number: 67)
Duration	01/12/2018 - 31/03/2022
Project Topic	Anthropogenic change is driving changes in the abundance and distributions of avian biodiversity in western Europe, with complex effects on the ecosystem services provided by bird populations. Our proposed project is a research collaboration among the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA) in Norway and five universities in Sweden (SLU, Univ. Lund), Finland (Univ. Helskinki, Univ. Turku), and the United States (Cornell Univ.). Our project will be a novel synthesis of long-term data from a suite of national bird monitoring programs, and we will develop state-of-the-art statistical tools to predict future bird distributions under alternative global change scenarios. The research questions of our four work packages are: a) Which functional traits are the best predictors of the effects of environmental change on the abundance and distributions of birds, and how will turnover in local and regional community structure affect ecosystem services?, b) How can we mitigate the effects of climate change and human land use as drivers of change for breeding bird populations?, c) How can we improve the conservation value of networks of protected areas if bird distributions change in the future?, and d) How will cross-seasonal interactions between the breeding and nonbreeding seasons affect avian responses to global change? Our models of future range shifts will be a valuable planning tool for minimizing losses of key ecosystem services from birds in forest regeneration, pest management, and sustainable harvest. Range shifts will also be used to identify emerging areas of potential conflicts due to crop damage or to impacts on recreational fisheries. Alternative scenarios will be developed with engagement of stakeholders who are responsible for management of natural resources on public lands and protected areas. We will partner with two nongovernmental agencies (European Bird Census Council, Wetlands International) to develop improved recommendations for conservation policy for protection of birds, their habitats, and associated biodiversity.
Network	BiodivScen
Call	Scenarios of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Project partner

Number	Name	Role	Country
1	Norwegian Institute for Nature Research	Coordinator	Norway
2	Cornell University	Partner	United States
3	Lund University	Partner	Sweden
4	Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences	Partner	Sweden
5	University of Helsinki	Partner	Finland
6	University of Turku	Partner	Finland