Regos, A., D'Amen, M.,Bota, G., Guisan, A. & Brotons, L. (2014). Changes in future habitat suitability of Ortolan bunting under fire management and climate change scenarios. XXII Congreso Español de Ornitologia. SEO/Birdlife. Madrid. 6-9 Diciembre.

1. Authors: Adrián Regos1*, Manuela D’Amen2, Gerard Bota1, Antoine Guisan2,3 & Lluís
Brotons1
Institutions: 1CEMFOR-CTFC (Centre Tecnològic i Forestal de Catalunya), Solsona, Spain.
2University of Lausanne, Department of Ecology and Evolution (DEE), Lausanne,
Switzerland. 3Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, Geopolis, University of Lausanne, 1015
Lausanne, Switzerland.
*E-mail: adrian.regos@ctfc.es
Introduction
Wildland fires are a major component of disturbance regimes in Mediterranean-type ecosystems worldwide. Current fire management policies will be
challenged in the future and new alternatives strategies will be appealed so as to minimize the increasing impact of large fires. However, it is still
uncertain how these alternative fire management strategies could affect biodiversity, especially in a climate change context.
The Ortolan bunting
The Ortolan bunting (Emberiza hortulana) is an open habitat, early-succession bird
species typically found in montane and subalpine meadows, open shrublands, as
well as farmland, with a strong preference for recently burnt areas.
Flowchart for the methodology
Occurrence data for the species at two different spatial
extents and resolutions: 1) European level at 50-km
resolution from the EBCC Atlas of European Breeding Birds
and 2) Catalan level at 1-km resolution from the CBBA the
Catalan Breeding Bird Atlas
Bird data

2. Scenario Description
BioFS + A2 Forest harvesting in optimal areas from an environmental and economic viewpoint (~ 39,000 annually extracted) + climate trend according to the A2a IPCC-SRES climate scenario.
BioFS + B2 Forest harvesting in optimal areas from an environmental and economic viewpoint (~ 39,000 annually extracted) + climate trend according to the B2a IPCC-SRES climate scenario.
BioFS + A2 plus Forest harvesting in optimal areas from a logistic and economic viewpoint (~ 62,000 annually extracted) + A2a
BioFS + B2 plus Forest harvesting in optimal areas from a logistic and economic viewpoint (~ 62,000 annually extracted) + B2a
UnFS + A2
An opportunistic fire suppression strategy based on low decreasing active firefighting efforts in controlled “mild” fire weather conditions to provide further firefighting opportunities in
adverse years + A2a
UnFS + B2
An opportunistic fire suppression strategy based on low decreasing active firefighting efforts in controlled “mild” fire weather conditions to provide further firefighting opportunities in
adverse years + B2a
UnFS + A2 plus
An opportunistic fire suppression strategy based on high decreasing active firefighting efforts in controlled “mild” fire weather conditions to provide further firefighting opportunities in
adverse years + A2a
UnFS + B2 plus
An opportunistic fire suppression strategy based on high decreasing active firefighting efforts in controlled “mild” fire weather conditions to provide further firefighting opportunities in
adverse years + B2a
Base+ HighFS + A2 Strong active suppression corresponding to currently fire suppression levels + A2a
Base + HighFS + B2 Strong active suppression corresponding to currently fire suppression levels + B2a
NoFS + A2 No Fire suppression + A2a
NoFS + B2 No Fire suppression + B2a
Scenario design
Modelling framework
1. Climate-model at European level
2. Projecting and downscaling at
Catalan level
4. LULC-model at Catalan level
6. Integrative
Model
5. Projecting at Catalan level
7. Projecting Integrative model at Catalan
level
8 and 9. Applying thresholds and assessing distributional changes
3. LULC variables from MEDFIRE model
European scale climate
variables from 4 GCMs for
2000 and 2050 (A2A and
B2A-storylines)
•CCCMA
•CSIRO
•HADCM3
•NIESS99
MEAN VALUES
Optimal habitat suitability was modelled
using five widely-used modelling techniques
in an ensemble forecasting framework (R-
based BIOMOD2 package) (AUC >0.9)

3. Conclusions and recommendations
Our results showed that fire management policies in interaction with climate change have the potential to strongly affect the amount
of habitat suitability for open habitat dwelling species, such as Ortolan bunting, through shifts in historical fire regime. In particular, the
decrease of the area with optimal habitat suitability ranged between 59 and 82%, owing to land abandonment and natural succession
processes. Scenarios based on ‘let-burn’ strategies showed lower decrease (59%) than those wherein all fires are suppressed
(current fire suppression paradigm). Medium values were found under forest biomass extraction scenarios (70%).
We conclude that fire-conducted landscape dynamics should be explicitly included in conservation plans, especially in the face of
global change.
Predicted changes in habitat suitability for each scenario
Results
Vegetation dynamics for each scenario
Acknowledgements
Partial funding supporting this project was received from the EU BON project (308454; FP7-ENV-2012, European Commission), BIONOVEL
CGL2011-29539, CONSOLIDER-MONTES CSD2008-00040 projects and the TRUSTEE project (RURAGRI ERA-NET 235175).
Predicted changes in habitat suitability for each scenario