Birds and Climate Change: Impacts and Conservation Response

James W Pearce-Higgins & Rhys E. Green

From Red Grouse to the Ethiopian Bush-crow, bird populations around the world can provide us with vital insights into the effects of climate change on species and ecosystems. They are among the best studied and monitored of organisms, yet many are already under threat of extinction as a result of habitat loss, overexploitation and pollution. Providing a single source of information for students, scientists, practitioners and policy-makers, 'Birds and Climate Change' begins with a critical review of the existing impacts of climate change on birds, including changes in the timing of migration and breeding and effects on bird populations around the world. The second part considers how conservationists can assess potential future impacts, quantifying how extinction risk is linked to the magnitude of global change and synthesising the evidence in support of likely conservation responses. The final chapters assess the threats posed by efforts to reduce the magnitude of climate change.

"Ongoing climate change has already had substantial impacts on the natural world. In birds, it affects the timing of their breeding and migrations, their numbers and distribution patterns. This book provides the most thorough and detailed review of this rapidly expanding research area yet published, and discusses various conservation measures that can be taken to mitigate the increasing impacts of climate change. (It) also fresh analyses the wealth of data now available from around the world. It also provides detailed assessments of measures that might be taken to help birds through this period of dramatic environmental change. The authors ably synthesise known information regarding birds and climate change, undertake new analyses of the data, and assess the conservation measures that might be taken to minimise the effects on bird populations"

 - Ian Newton, Emeritus Fellow, Centre for Ecology and Hydrology

477 pages.

Hardback £89.99 £86.99

Softback £52.99 £50.99