Biodiversity, bird distribution and monitoring and impacts of environmental change (including climate change).

Biogeography
Conservation Biology
Ecology
Evolutionary Biology
Zoology

Improved transnational monitoring of biodiversity and ecosystem change for science and society:

The assemblages of bird bones found in early Neolithic sites in SW Jordan show that despite of naturally caused climatic change, the dominant or common passage migrants did not change significantly during the last 12,000 years, i.e. they maintained their migration routes despite of climate change suggesting that migration behavior can evolve quickly, or some bird species have always been behaviorally (and perhaps physiologically) flexible during migration. However, the picture is quite different in resident and breeding, where species adapted to cooler environments have disappeared from the region. Some rare and threatened species like Syrian Serin have been decreasing in Jordan during the last decade due to the combination of drought, overgrazing and other disturbances. Another recent study revealed that a further Wheatear species is becoming confined to higher and cooler areas in Jordan. Birds inhabiting various environments in Jordan are expected to respond in a different way to increased heat waves and drought, those inhabiting relic habitats in highlands as small, sometimes isolated populations, may be the least able to adapt to rapid climate change, especially in combination with anthropogenic factors. Another aspect is the spread of invasive species.

terrestrial biodiversity, ecosystem monitoring, native and invasive species, migratory and resident birds, levant and europe

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