Dan Chamberlain

University of Turin | UNITO · Dipartimento di Scienze della Vita e Biologia dei Sistemi

The effectiveness of agri‐environment schemes (AESs), the largest conservation‐related expenditure for farmland biodiversity conservation within the European Union, is often compromised by a limited spatial scale of implementation. We focused on multiannual forage crops, a surrogate habitat for grassland birds, to assess the scale‐dependent effects...

As a consequence of both climate and land‐use change, open alpine habitats are shrinking. Snow avalanches are a natural disturbance that create habitat mosaics which host unique bird communities, but their frequency and severity will probably be influenced by climate change. Ski‐pistes can be considered the artificial counterpart of avalanches, and...

Non-native species are one of the greatest threats to biodiversity worldwide, due to their direct and indirect effects on native communities. There are two opposing hypotheses to explain how non-native species successfully establish outside their native range. The first posits that non-native species are closely related to local native species thro...

Increased urbanisation influences the morphometric traits of various species, often resulting in urban individuals being smaller than their non-urban counterparts. Urbanisation can affect fundamental eco-evolutionary patterns and impact species’ ability to adapt to and occupy rapidly changing environments through morphological changes. We investiga...

Mountain habitats harbour significant breeding populations of alpine bird species, yet they can also be important from a biodiversity conservation point of view outside the breeding season. High-elevations are likely important fuelling habitats for birds during the post-breeding period due to seasonal peaks in arthropod abundance being later relati...

Birds of open alpine grasslands are threatened by the degradation and contraction of their breeding habitat. To assess potential impacts of environmental change in alpine environments, basic ecological knowledge, such as habitat requirements during pre-breeding and breeding periods, is needed. We conducted territory and habitat mapping of a populat...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Introduced alien species are associated with lower taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic diversity of native communities and negative impacts on ecosystem functioning. This is particularly evident in habitats where human disturbance may favour alien species, posing an additional stressor on native communities. Following the community resistance hy...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

High-elevation species have to survive in harsh climatic conditions and have evolved adaptations to cope with extreme environments. Climate change combined with the loss of open habitats threatens the survival of a specialized alpine bird, the White-winged Snowfinch (Montifringilla nivalis). There is an urgent need to provide appropriate answers to...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relat...

High mountain habitats are globally important for biodiversity. At least 12% of birds worldwide breed at or above the treeline, many of which are endemic species or species of conservation concern. However, due to the challenges of studying mountain birds in difficult-to-access habitats, little is known about their status and trends. This book prov...

High mountain habitats are globally important for biodiversity. At least 12% of birds worldwide breed at or above the treeline, many of which are endemic species or species of conservation concern. However, due to the challenges of studying mountain birds in difficult-to-access habitats, little is known about their status and trends. This book prov...

High mountain habitats are globally important for biodiversity. At least 12% of birds worldwide breed at or above the treeline, many of which are endemic species or species of conservation concern. However, due to the challenges of studying mountain birds in difficult-to-access habitats, little is known about their status and trends. This book prov...

High mountain habitats are globally important for biodiversity. At least 12% of birds worldwide breed at or above the treeline, many of which are endemic species or species of conservation concern. However, due to the challenges of studying mountain birds in difficult-to-access habitats, little is known about their status and trends. This book prov...

At present, the intensification of urban landcover is one of the most critical threats for biodiversity. Common side-effects of urban sprawl are anthropogenic noise and artificial light at night (ALAN). Although their negative effects have often been described, little research has concerned nocturnal wildlife, especially avian predators. Here, we i...

Introduced alien species have direct and indirect effects on native communities, leading to lower taxonomic diversity and negative impacts on ecosystem functioning. Moreover, other aspects of diversity could be negatively affected, through alteration of functional and phylogenetic diversity of a community. This is particularly evident in habitats w...

Background To understand the ecology of long-distance migrant bird species, it is necessary to study their full annual cycle, including migratory routes and stopovers. This is especially important for species in high-elevation habitats that are particularly vulnerable to environmental change. Here, we investigated both local and global movements du...

Mate choice is a key process in animals to optimize the fitness benefits of reproduction, and it is generally guided by phe-notypic features of potential partners that mirror reproductive abilities. Assortative mating occurs when there is within-pair selection for specific functional traits that can confer fitness benefits. Assortative mating can b...

Mountain regions harbour dynamic ecosystems that have been historically shaped by interactions between natural abiotic processes and human activities, but nowadays they are threatened by climate change. Avalanches are one of the main sources of natural disturbance in mountain areas, creating habitat mosaics with a high vegetation heterogeneity that...

Context Urbanization and its associated impacts on biodiversity are increasing globally. There is a need to enhance our understanding of species responses to inform strategies for sustainable urbanization. Objectives Three extensive bird monitoring campaigns took place over the last three decades in the city of Naples, Italy, providing a comprehen...

Climate change is leading to the advancement of spring conditions, resulting in an earlier snowmelt and green‐up, with highest rates of change in highly seasonal environments, including alpine habitats. Migratory birds breeding at high elevations need to time their arrival and lay dates accurately with this advancement, but also with the annually v...

Alien bird species often negatively interact with native bird species leading to local biodiversity loss and trait homogenisation. Our aim was to assess bird communities resilience to alien bird species in highly human-modified landscape. We surveyed 189 randomly distributed points (stratified sampling: urban, agricultural and forest areas) using p...

Alien species can replace native species, occupying the same phylogenetic and functional space in native assemblage, leading to local biodiversity loss and biotic homogenization. This is the case when alien birds negatively interact with native bird species. Additionally, in urban and agricultural areas, land-use changes may favour alien birds, pos...

Urbanization is one of the most severe forms of environmental alteration, in which increasing human settlement leads to an unprecedented loss of natural areas, thereby threatening global biodiversity and associated ecosystem functions. Consequently, the evidence base needs to be strengthened in order to understand how this man-made alteration affec...

In mountains, habitat mosaics, such as those found at the upper limit of coniferous forests in temperate regions, host relatively high avian diversity. In European mountains in particular, open habitat bird species are threatened by a decrease in agro-pastoral activities and by global warming. Snow avalanches act as a natural agent of disturbance t...

Citations remain a prime, yet controversial, measure of academic performance. Ideally, how often a paper is cited should solely depend on the quality of the science reported therein. However, non-scientific factors, including structural elements (e.g., length of abstract, number of references) or attributes of authors (e.g., prestige and gender), m...

Most people lack direct experience with wildlife and form their risk perception primarily on information provided by the media. The way the media frames news may substantially shape public risk perception, promoting or discouraging public tolerance towards wildlife. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, bats were suggested as the most plausible re...

Mountain ecosystems have special significance for biodiversity and are vulnerable to climate and other environmental changes. However, few assessments of drivers of change have been conducted in these areas in comparison to other more accessible biomes. In this study, we developed an objective and broad definition of a mountain bird, and systematic...

Mountains support high biodiversity, often including endemic and vulnerable species, but they are also particularly sensitive to climate change. Whilst studies on mountain biodiversity at the species level are common, studies that consider whole assemblages are scarce. We assessed how an alpine bird assemblage varied in terms of ecological habitat...

Background Increasing temperatures and changes in precipitation patterns threaten the existence of many organisms. It is therefore informative to identify the functional traits that underlie differences in desiccation resistance to understand the response of different species to changes in water availability resulting from climate change. We used a...

Capsule During playback experiments, the distance from the surveyor to the call influences the chances of detection across nocturnal species in farmland and woodland habitats. Aim To evaluate how distance affects surveyor detection capability, expressed as the probability of hearing broadcast calls and of estimating their distances correctly, in a...

Timing reproduction to coincide with optimal environmental conditions is key for many organisms living in seasonal habitats. Advance in the onset of spring is a particular challenge to migratory birds that must time their arrival without knowing the conditions on the breeding grounds. This is amplified at high elevations where resource availability...

The impacts of extreme and rising mean temperatures due to climate change can pose significant physiological challenges for insects. An integrated approach that focuses on mechanisms of body temperature regulation, water balance and morphology may help to unravel the functional traits underpinning thermoregulation strategies and the most relevant t...

Urbanization is one of the most intensive forms of landscape and habitat transformation, resulting in species loss, and taxonomic and functional homogenization of different communities. Whilst green infrastructure (the network of natural and semi-natural areas in cities) has been studied extensively in terms of specific features that promote biodiv...

The study of desiccation resistance and its underlying traits is key to understanding species responses to changes in water availability, especially in the context of predicted increases in the frequency and severity of droughts due to climate change. We performed laboratory experiments using dung beetles, important ecosystem service providers, to...

Urban animal ecology is a rapidly growing research area, yielding fascinating insights into the patterns and processes that shape biodiversity in the city. However, much of this research has focused on cities in the developed world, where the mechanisms affecting biodiversity might be very different to those in the developing cities of the Global S...

Agricultural intensification and mechanization are major threats to farmland birds in Europe. The Corncrake Crex crex was a common and widespread species in rural landscapes in Italy, but its numbers strongly declined in most of its former range in the last half of the 20th century. Although it is a well-studied species in the Eastern Italian Alps,...

A steady advance in the onset of spring is one of the most prominent footprints of climate warming and requires organisms, including migratory birds, to adapt their annual routines. As lower trophic levels typically adapt faster than higher trophic levels, observations of reduced fitness due to trophic mismatches are becoming more frequent, especia...

Mountain ecosystems are subject to many pressures, including changes in land use, rising temperatures and increasing recreational activities. These factors may disrupt food webs, threatening the survival of organisms and, ultimately, ecosystem functioning. However, few studies focus on the trends of different groups joined by trophic links in alpin...

Aim Urban biodiversity, and its associated ecosystem services, is an important component of the quality of life of urban residents. The "luxury effect" posits a positive association between biodiversity and socioeconomic status in urban areas, and is thus reflective of environmental injustice, as the benefits associated with biodiversity are not eq...

Predictions derived from species distribution models (SDMs) are strongly influenced by the spatial scale at which species and environmental data (e.g. climate) are gathered. SDMs of mountain birds usually build on large-scale temperature estimates. However, the topographic complexity of mountain areas could create microclimatic refuges which may al...

Studying phenotypic variations along gradients may provide insights into mechanisms that drive species distributions, and thus can be useful indicators of environmental change. In mountains, the study of phenotypic variation along elevation gradients is of increasing relevance due to impacts of climate change. We analysed European ringing data to m...

Studying phenotypic variations along gradients may provide insights into mechanisms that drive species distributions, and thus can be useful indicators of environmental change. In mountains, the study of phenotypic variation along elevation gradients is of increasing relevance due to impacts of climate change. We analysed European ringing data to m...

The White-winged Snowfinch Montifringilla nivalis nivalis is assumed to be highly threatened by climate change, but this high elevation species has been little studied and the current breeding distribution is accurately known only for a minor portion of its range. Here, we provide a detailed and spatially explicit identification of the potentially...

Aim To assess how species traits modulate the responses of carabids to elevational gradients, and how consistent these relationships are across different Alpine regions. Location Italian Alps. Taxon Coleoptera, Carabidae (ground beetles). Methods Carabid communities were sampled using pitfall traps along elevational gradients (697–2,840 m) in 41...

Interspecific interactions are crucial in determining species occurrence and community assembly. Understanding these interactions is thus essential for correctly predicting species' responses to climate change. We focussed on an avian forest guild of four hole-nesting species with differing sensitivities to climate, that show a range of well-unders...

Early Career Researchers (ECRs) represent the next generation of ornithologists. In order to maximise the potential of ECRs to science, it is important to understand their perceptions of the opportunities and constraints that they face. We undertook a pilot study based on a questionnaire survey to gauge attitudes of ECRs in ornithology towards the...

Urbanisation is among the most ecologically damaging change in land use, posing significant threats to global biodiversity. Most bat species are threatened by urbanisation, although urban areas can also offer important roosting and foraging opportunities. Urban development should consider how bats are likely to respond to development, and take meas...

The Alcotra LEMED-IBEX Project 2017 - 2020 aims to improve collaborations between Italian (Gran Paradiso National Park, Valle d'Aosta Autonomous Region, Management Unit of the Cottian Alps protected areas, Management Agency of the Maritime Alps protected areas) and French (Asters- CEN74, Vanoise National Park, Ecrins National Park, Mercantour Natio...

La biodiversità delle praterie alpine d’alta quota è minacciata dal cambiamento climatico, il quale provoca un avanzamento verso l’alto della treeline con un notevole impatto negativo sulle specie che si riproducono in questo ambiente. Tali cambiamenti determinano trend popolazionali negativi per molte specie di uccelli migratori a lungo raggio, qu...

The Luxury Effect hypothesizes a positive relationship between wealth and biodiversity within urban areas. Understanding how urban development, both in terms of socioeconomic status and the built environment, affects biodiversity can contribute to the sustainable development of cities, and may be especially important in the developing world where c...

Mountain habitats are threatened by several factors, including human activities at high elevation, although the negative impacts can sometimes be balanced by positive effects related to human presence. However, knowledge of such interactions is limited in alpine ecosystems. In the study reported here, we assessed the extent of behavioural responses...

The relationship between the physical structure of the habitat and biodiversity has been investigated from different viewpoints in recent years. It has been documented that as the environment gets more complex in structure, the number of species in many animal groups increases. Focusing on birds, this correlation has been well described by MacArthu...

Long-term studies of urban birds are relatively scarce, especially in Africa. We analysed trends in species richness and bird species occurrence over a 32-year period in Kampala, Uganda, in order to assess changes in the bird community in a period that has shown rapid expansion of the city's human population. Given that species may respond to urban...

Throughout the Western World, huge numbers of people regularly supply food for wild birds. However, evidence of negative impacts of winter feeding on future reproduction has highlighted a need to improve understanding of the underlying mechanisms shaping avian responses to supplementary food. Here, we test the possibility that carry‐over effects ar...

In a mountain context, the forest-shrub ecotone is an area of high biodiversity. Relatively little is known about the habitat requirements of birds in this habitat, yet it is facing potential threats from changes in grazing practices and climate change. Moreover, it is not clear at which scale habitat associations should be assessed in Alpine birds...

The majority of predictions about the impacts of climate change on wildlife have relied either on the study of species' physiological tolerance or on broad-scale distribution models. In comparison, little attention has been paid to species' mechanistic responses to fine-grained, climate-induced modifications of habitat suitability. However, such st...

Individual variability in animal movement behaviour is well documented for many species. However, it remains unclear whether this variability reflects genetic variation, environmental variation or a combination of the two. Here, we conduct a cross-fostering experiment with the aim of investigating the role of these two components in movement patter...

Loss, fragmentation and decreasing quality of habitats have been proposed as major threats to biodiversity world-wide, but relatively little is known about biodiversity responses to multiple pressures, particularly at very large spatial scales. We evaluated the relative contributions of four landscape variables (habitat cover, diversity, fragmentat...

Analysis of the spring distribution of the Black Grouse in the Val Troncea Regional Park

Impacts of urbanization on biodiversity are commonly studied using urbanization gradients which provide a space-for-time substitution in estimating consequences of urban expansion. Rates of urbanization and human population growth are high in tropical countries of the developing world, which also hold most of the world’s biodiversity hot-spots, yet...

Aim: Human-induced climate change requires conservation strategies incorporating its potential effects on species and communities. Key components of population persistence can be attributed to resistance (the capacity to remain unaffected) or resilience (capacity to absorb and recover) to climate change. In situ climatic refugia can act as resistan...

In the current scenario of human-induced environmental changes, boreal forest biodiversity appears to be threatened by both deforestation for timber production and climate change. A northern species which has experienced a decline due to ongoing habitat degradation in Finland is the Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis), a forest-dwelling avian pre...

High-elevation species are expected to be vulnerable to climate warming and to experience dramatic range contractions in the coming decades. Indeed, climate change in high-altitude biota has proceeded at a faster pace compared to lowlands. Understanding basic ecological features of mountain species, such as their foraging ecology, may be useful to...

ABSTRACTCapsule: Restoration of grasslands on ski-pistes caused a recovery in the bird community, but not to the extent that it was equivalent to a natural Alpine grassland community.Aim: To test whether revegetation of ski-pistes in open habitat areas results in bird community recovery.Methods: The bird communities in two ski resorts in the Italia...

Many species have shown recent shifts in their distributions in response to climate change. Patterns in species occurrence or abundance along altitudinal gradients often serve as the basis for detecting such changes and assessing future sensitivity. Quantifying the distribution of species along altitudinal gradients acts as a fundamental basis for...

Capsule: Predation rates of artificial nests along elevational gradients were higher closer to the treeline in the European Alps. Aims: Alpine grassland birds tend to show an avoidance of mature trees, possibly due to an edge effect, such as higher predation pressure close to the treeline. This study aimed to estimate potential predation pressure i...

Aim To assess the extent of the possible future conflict between skiing and biodiversity driven by climate change, human adaptation and species’ distribution shifts. Location Italian Alps. Methods We assessed the extent of the possible future conflict between skiing and biodiversity by predicting locations likely to be suitable for both skiing and...