Ducks change wintering patterns due to changing climate in the important wintering waters of the Odra River Estuary

• Published in: PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) Vol. 5; p. e3604
• Main Authors: Marchowski, Dominik, Jankowiak, Łukasz, Wysocki, Dariusz, Ławicki, Łukasz, Girjatowicz, Józef
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States PeerJ. Ltd 31-07-2017; PeerJ, Inc; PeerJ Inc
• Subjects: Animal wintering; Behavior; Bird migration; Climate change; Common Pochard; Conservation Biology; Dreissena polymorpha; Ducks; Ecology; Ecosystem Science; Environmental aspects; Estuaries; Eurasian coot; Food; Freezing; Fulica atra; Global warming; Greater Scaup; Ice coverage sensitivity; Mergellus albellus; Migratory birds; Mollusks; Rivers; Species; Tufted Duck; Wetlands; Winter range shift; Zoology; Baltic Sea; Ice coverage sensitivity; Eurasian coot; Behavior; Smew; Greater Scaup; Winter range shift; Baltic Sea; Common Pochard; Tufted Duck; Important Bird Areas
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.3604
• EISSN: 2167-8359

Some species of birds react to climate change by reducing the distance they travel during migration. The Odra River Estuary in the Baltic Sea is important for wintering waterfowl and is where we investigated how waterbirds respond to freezing surface waters. The most abundant birds here comprise two ecological groups: bottom-feeders and piscivores. Numbers of all bottom-feeders, but not piscivores, were negatively correlated with the presence of ice. With ongoing global warming, this area is increasing in importance for bottom-feeders and decreasing for piscivores. The maximum range of ice cover in the Baltic Sea has a weak and negative effect on both groups of birds. Five of the seven target species are bottom-feeders (Greater Scaup
, Tufted Duck
, Common Pochard
, Common Goldeneye
and Eurasian Coot
), and two are piscivores (Smew
and Goosander
). Local changes at the level of particular species vary for different reasons. A local decline of the Common Pochard may simply be a consequence of its global decline. Climate change is responsible for some of the local changes in the study area, disproportionately favoring some duck species while being detrimental to others.