Birds and Climate Change

James Pearce-Higgins is a Principal Ecologist at the British Trust for Ornithology, where he leads on climate change research across the organisation and manages the Population Ecology and Modelling team. He is responsible for a range of research projects to examine the evidence for climate change impacts on biodiversity, undertaking projections of future responses and conducting research to inform how conservation should adapt to climate change. Rhys E. Green is Principal Research Biologist at The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Honorary Professor of Conservation Science at the University of Cambridge. His research focuses on measuring the effects of human land use, disturbance, illegal killing, climatic change and conservation management on the demography of bird populations, using the insights this provides to devise conservation programmes.

• Foreword Michael B. Usher; Acknowledgements; 1. Birds and climate change; Part I. Impacts: 2. Altered timings; 3. The impact of altered timings; 4. Further mechanisms of population impacts; 5. Effects of climate change on distributions and communities; Part II. Conservation Responses: 6. Using models to predict the effects of climate change on birds; 7. Conservation in a changing climate; 8. Effects of climate change mitigation on birds; 9. Overall conclusions; References; Index.

'Over twenty years ago, when I first became interested in the impacts of climate change on wild plants and animals, the literature was limited and the field wide open. Now it is very hard to keep up. This marvellous book is exactly what I need to feel on top of the subject once more, and needs to be read not just by ornithologists, but by all ecologists struggling to understand and predict the impacts of climate change on the living world. The authors are two world-leaders on the impacts of climate change on birds. The text summarises the effects of climate change that have already happened, seeks to predict what we can expect in the future, and considers what conservation biologists can do to mitigate its effects. The coverage is comprehensive, and skilfully distils a large and complicated literature into a compelling … narrative.' John Lawton, Chairman, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and Vice-President, Royal Society for the Protection of Birds