Volume 14 Issue 1
Feb.  2023
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Kyle D. Kittelberger, Colby J. Tanner, Nikolas D. Orton, Çağan Hakkı Şekercioğlu. 2023: The value of community science data to analyze long-term avian trends in understudied regions: The state of birds in Türkiye. Avian Research, 14(1): 100140. DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2023.100140
Citation: Kyle D. Kittelberger, Colby J. Tanner, Nikolas D. Orton, Çağan Hakkı Şekercioğlu. 2023: The value of community science data to analyze long-term avian trends in understudied regions: The state of birds in Türkiye. Avian Research, 14(1): 100140. DOI: 10.1016/j.avrs.2023.100140
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The value of community science data to analyze long-term avian trends in understudied regions: The state of birds in Türkiye

  • a.

    School of Biological Sciences, University of Utah, 257 S 1400 E, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA

  • b.

    Koç University, Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Istanbul, Türkiye

  • c.

    KuzeyDoğa Derneği, Istasyon Mahallesi, Ismail Aytemiz Caddesi, 36200 Kars, Türkiye

Funds: We thank Montague H.C. Neate-Clegg for his assistance with some of the ideas utilized in this study, as well as helping with some early data exploration. We also thank Reily S. Shields for her assistance with an early version of this manuscript. We thank Frederick R. Adler for feedback on the statistical component of this study. We are grateful to H. Batubay Özkan and Barbara Watkins for their support of the Biodiversity and Conservation Ecology Lab at the University of Utah School of Biological Sciences
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  • Corresponding author:

    E-mail address: kyle.kittelberger@utah.edu (K.D. Kittelberger)

  • Received Date: 04 Oct 2022
  • Rev Recd Date: 22 Sep 2023
  • Accepted Date: 24 Sep 2023
  • Available Online: 10 Jan 2024
  • Publish Date: 17 Oct 2023
    Graphical Abstract
    • Abstract

  • Recent studies have revealed concerning declines in bird populations in Europe and other parts of the world. In understudied but biodiverse regions, especially those that are located along key migratory flyways, there is an unmet need to evaluate the status of resident and migratory birdlife for avian conservation ecology. This is especially urgent at a time when recent regional studies have highlighted the scale of the decline of the European and Palearctic avifauna. Rapidly growing community science datasets may help bridge the gaps in our understanding of long-term regional avifaunal trends. In this study, we used eBird data submitted by observers in Türkiye to undertake the first long-term assessment of the state of the country’s birds from 2001 to 2022. We evaluated population trends based on presence-absence data of species to determine if any birds have significantly increased or decreased in the country so far this century. We provide a list of trends for 418 bird species that had large enough sample sizes of eBird observations from Türkiye, and highlight which species have significantly declined or increased. We found that 63 species have significantly declined in detection while 120 have significantly increased during the study period. Our findings provide a baseline for the future monitoring of Türkiye’s birds and help contextualize population changes of birds in Türkiye against those occurring at the continental (Palearctic) scale. Additionally, we include movement classifications for all of the bird species in this study. We also provide a framework to effectively use eBird data to assess long-term avifaunal changes at the country-level in other understudied regions. Finally, we highlight ways in which eBirders in Türkiye and elsewhere can strengthen the quality and value of community ornithology data for population assessments and avian conservation ecology.

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  • In the original version of this article, we published a figure showing a gap in the confidence intervals for body and tail due to data paucity for mid stages of moult progress. Here, we amended this problem adding data from the 2023 moulting season, during which we obtained 139 moult records from 98 individuals. The final sample size used for plotting these results are shown in the caption below. This amendment corroborates the conclusion already stated: body moult does not seem to be under physiological constraints, although primary moult appears to be tightly controlled to reduce aerodynamic losses.

    Figure  8.  Moult speed in the House Sparrow, calculated as the average mass gain during the elapsed time between capture and recaptures. Local polynomial regression on moult progress calculated as the mean moult progress between consecutive captures (shaded ribbons depict 95% confidence intervals). Mass gain of primaries and rectrices have been calculated from one wing and tail side, respectively, and then multiplied by 2, i.e., assuming symmetry. Sample sizes for body and rectrices and primaries were n = 76 and 98 within-year recaptures from 56 to 40 individuals, respectively.
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    The authors would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused.

    Santi Guallar: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Software, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing. Javier Quesada: Funding acquisition, Resources, Validation, Visualization, Writing – review & editing.

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