Relationships between winter temperature and breeding bird abundance on community level: importance of interspecific differences in diet

Abstract

The study focuses on the effect of winter temperature on annual fluctuations of breeding populations of resident bird species in the Czech Republic as revealed by a large scale monitoring scheme. We have shown that the effect is generally small, and larger in species feeding on animals compared to species feeding on plats.

In contrast, populations of many species expressed strong negative density dependence.

Keywords

• climate
• food type
• body size
• abundance
• bird assemblage
• population regulation