effects of climate change on montane forest birds in Ethiopia

Climate change is one of the most serious threats to global biodiversity. Much of the world’s biodiversity is endemic to mountainous areas within the tropics. Such montane species are highly vulnerable to warming temperatures given their limited ranges and high habitat specificity. Montane species may respond to global warming by shifting their distributions towards cooler temperatures at higher elevations. It remains unclear whether birds are responding either directly to temperature changes or indirectly via altered habitat structure or resource availability due to temperature change. We evaluated distributional shifts of bird populations in Bale Mountains National Park through re-surveying historical grids as well as through capture-mark-recapture (CMR) mist-netting and banding techniques, and compared these results to habitat and climatic variables.

My field team on the Sanetti Plateau in the Bale Mountains National Park, Ethiopia.

Jordan (me) holding a narina trogon.