Species-specific traits mediate avian demographic responses under past climate change

Anticipating species’ responses to environmental change is a pressing mission in biodiversity conservation. Despite decades of research investigating how climate change may affect population sizes, historical context is lacking and the traits which mediate demographic sensitivity to changing climate remain elusive. We use whole-genome sequence data to reconstruct the demographic histories of 263 bird species over the past million years and identify networks of interacting morphological and life-history traits associated with changes in effective population size (Ne) in response to climate warming and cooling. Our results identify direct and indirect effects of key traits representing survival, reproduction, and dispersal processes on long-term demographic responses to climate change and highlight traits most likely to influence population responses to ongoing climate warming., ,预测物种对环境变化的响应，是生物多样性保护领域的一项紧迫任务。尽管数十年来已有诸多研究探讨气候变化可能如何影响种群规模，但相关历史背景仍存在缺失，且介导种群对气候变化的种群统计敏感性的性状仍未明确。本研究采用全基因组测序数据，重构了过去100万年间263种鸟类的种群动态历史，并识别出与气候冷暖波动下有效种群数量（Ne）变化相关的形态与生活史性状互作网络。本研究结果揭示了代表存活、繁殖与扩散过程的关键性状对气候变化下长期种群动态响应的直接与间接效应，并指明了最可能影响当前气候变暖背景下种群响应的核心性状。