Is earlier spring migration of Tatarstan warblers expected under climate warming?

We analysed data on the arrival dates of four species of leaf warbler (genus Phylloscopus) collected in Tatarstan between 1957 and 2004. There was no evidence over the whole period that the warblers returned to their breeding sites significantly earlier, mainly because local temperatures for April and May, months when the majority of birds arrived from their wintering grounds, did not increase significantly. However, arrival dates of two species (Chiffchaff P. collybita and Willow warbler P.trochilus) were strongly related to local temperature in April, and that of Greenish warbler P. trochiloides to that in May. As expected, arrival dates for the three species wintering in Africa (Chiffchaff, Willow and Wood warblers P. sibilatrix) correlated positively with one another (P < 0.01 in all cases), but were not correlated with arrival dates of Greenish warbler (P > 0.5 in all cases), a species wintering in the Indian sub-continent.

[1]  T. Sparks,et al.  Earlier arrival of some farmland migrants in western Poland , 2002 .

[2]  T. Sparks,et al.  Arrival and Departure Dates , 2004 .

[3]  Charles M. Francis,et al.  The influence of climate on the timing and rate of spring bird migration , 2004, Oecologia.

[4]  C. Perrins,et al.  Birds of the Western Palearctic , 1978, Nature.

[5]  L. Brotóns,et al.  Do changes in climate patterns in wintering areas affect the timing of the spring arrival of trans‐Saharan migrant birds? , 2005 .

[6]  Y. Morozov,et al.  Long-term trends in the timing of spring migration of passerines on the Courish Spit of the Baltic Sea , 1998 .

[7]  S. Schneider,et al.  Human-modified temperatures induce species changes: Joint attribution. , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[8]  O. Hoegh‐Guldberg,et al.  Ecological responses to recent climate change , 2002, Nature.

[9]  T. Sparks,et al.  What affects the magnitude of change in first arrival dates of migrant birds? , 2005, Journal of Ornithology.

[10]  T. Price,et al.  Latitudinal trends in body size among over-wintering leaf warblers (genus Phylloscopus) , 2003 .

[11]  T. Sparks.  Phenology and the changing pattern of bird migration in Britain , 1999 .

[12]  David J. Karoly,et al.  Detection of Regional Surface Temperature Trends , 2005 .

[13]  M. D. Schwartz.  Phenology: An Integrative Environmental Science , 2003, Tasks for Vegetation Science.

[14]  Z. Hubálek.  Co-fluctuation among bird species in their migration timing , 2005 .

[15]  Carsten Rahbek,et al.  Patterns of change in timing of spring migration in North European songbird populations , 2006 .

[16]  O. Hüppop,et al.  Examining the total arrival distribution of migratory birds , 2005 .