Continent-Wide Patterns of Climate and Mast Seeding Entrain Boreal Bird Irruptions.

ABSTRACT: Avian irruptions are facultative, often periodic, migrations of thousands of birds outside of their resident range. Irruptive movements produce regional anomalies of abundance that oscillate over time, forming ecological dipoles (geographically disjunct regions of low and high abundance) at continental scales. Potential drivers of irruptions include climate and food variability, but these relationships are rarely tested over broad geographic scales. We used community science data on winter bird abundance (1989-2021) to identify spatiotemporal patterns of irruption for nine boreal birds across the United States and Canada and compared them to time series of winter climate and annual tree seed production. We hypothesized that, during irruption, bird abundance would decrease in regions experi

SUBMITTER: Widick IV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11837231 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature