Abstract
High-alpine ecosystems are strongly seasonal and adverse environments. In these ecosystems, the brevity of optimal breeding conditions means species must efficiently track spatiotemporal variations in resources in order to synchronise their reproductive effort with peaks in food availability. Understanding the details of prey-habitat associations and their seasonality in such ecosystems is thus key for deciphering species’ ecological niches and developing sound conservation action. However, the ecological requirements of high-alpine avifauna remain poorly documented. Furthermore, mountain ranges in the Old World are affected not only by profound alterations of climate, but also by changes in land-use, the interaction of which hampers both proper forecasting of species’ resilience to environmental change and delivery of evidence-based conservation guidance. Here, we investigate the prey-habitat associations of a high-alpine passerine, the White-winged Snowfinch (Montifringilla nivalis), by radio-tracking breeding adults in the Swiss Alps. In late spring and early summer, Snowfinches foraged preferentially next to invertebrate-rich, melting snow patches where Tipulidae larvae abound. Later, in mid-summer, they favoured flower-rich alpine meadows. When foraging, they always preferred short ground vegetation while avoiding rock and scree. Their pattern of foraging habitat selection reflects trade-offs between food abundance and accessibility, i.e. prey availability. The reliance of this passerine on a habitat mosaic where snow plays a major role questions its ability to cope with climate change due to future habitat loss and potential phenological mismatches. Targeted grazing could possibly help in habitat management by aiming at maintaining invertebrate-rich meadows with short vegetation. Yet, it remains an open question whether habitat management would suffice to compensate for the potentially detrimental effects of the progressive retreat of snow fields to higher elevations.
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Acknowledgements
We are thankful to Julia Besimo, Laura Bosco, Estefi Jiménez, Clement Jourdan, Mattia Maldonado and Valentin Moser for their assistance in the field. We are also indebted to Roel van Klink and Lukas Lischer for a continuous support in the lab. We are grateful to the European Snowfinch Group (www.snowfinch.eu) for stimulating discussions. We are indebted to Prof. Craig Hamilton, from the Academic English Services at Bern University, and Dr James Hale, who kindly revised the use of English. We thank the two reviewers for valuable comments on the manuscript. Bird capture permit was provided by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (F044-0799).
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Resano-Mayor, J., Korner-Nievergelt, F., Vignali, S. et al. Snow cover phenology is the main driver of foraging habitat selection for a high-alpine passerine during breeding: implications for species persistence in the face of climate change. Biodivers Conserv 28, 2669–2685 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01786-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01786-9