Disentangling the effects of multiple environmental drivers on population changes within communities

1. The effects of different environmental drivers on the changes in species’ population abundances can be difficult to disentangle since they often act simultaneously. Researchers have built statistical models that include environmental variables (such as annual temperature), or species attributes (such as a species’ temperature preference), which are assumed to detect the impacts of specific drivers (such as climate change). However, these approaches are often applied separately or, if combined, not explicitly compared. 2. We show the complementary insights gained by applying both these approaches to a community dataset on Danish terrestrial birds. We use our analysis to compare the relative importance of climate change and agricultural land-use change for the abundance changes within the community between 1983 and 2013. 3. Population models were fitted to the community data of species’ annual abundances with predictors comprising: species attributes (species’ temperature and habitat p...

1. 不同环境驱动因子对物种种群丰度变化的影响往往难以厘清，因为它们通常同时发挥作用。研究人员已构建包含环境变量（如年平均气温）或物种属性（如物种的温度偏好）的统计模型，此类模型旨在识别特定驱动因子（如气候变化）的影响。然而，这些分析方法常被单独应用，即便有所结合，也未得到明确的对比分析。2. 本研究展示了将这两类方法同时应用于丹麦陆地鸟类群落数据集所获得的互补性认知。我们通过分析对比了1983年至2013年间，气候变化与农业土地利用变化对该群落内物种种群丰度变化的相对重要性。3. 我们以物种种群年度丰度的群落数据为拟合对象构建种群模型，其预测因子包括：物种属性（物种的温度偏好与栖息地……