Climate change causes upslope shifts and mountaintop extirpations in a tropical bird community.

ABSTRACT: Montane species worldwide are shifting upslope in response to recent temperature increases. These upslope shifts are predicted to lead to mountaintop extinctions of species that live only near mountain summits, but empirical examples of populations that have disappeared are sparse. We show that recent warming constitutes an "escalator to extinction" for birds on a remote Peruvian mountain-high-elevation species have declined in both range size and abundance, and several previously common mountaintop residents have disappeared from the local community. Our findings support projections that warming will likely drive widespread extirpations and extinctions of high-elevation taxa in the tropical Andes. Such climate change-driven mountaintop extirpations may be more likely in the tropics, where

SUBMITTER: Freeman BG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6255149 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature