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Demographic effects of extreme winter weather in the barn owl

  • Population Ecology
  • Published:
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Abstract

Extreme weather events can lead to immediate catastrophic mortality. Due to their rare occurrence, however, the long-term impacts of such events for ecological processes are unclear. We examined the effect of extreme winters on barn owl (Tyto alba) survival and reproduction in Switzerland over a 68-year period (∼20 generations). This long-term data set allowed us to compare events that occurred only once in several decades to more frequent events. Winter harshness explained 17 and 49% of the variance in juvenile and adult survival, respectively, and the two harshest winters were associated with major population crashes caused by simultaneous low juvenile and adult survival. These two winters increased the correlation between juvenile and adult survival from 0.63 to 0.69. Overall, survival decreased non-linearly with increasing winter harshness in adults, and linearly in juveniles. In contrast, brood size was not related to the harshness of the preceding winter. Our results thus reveal complex interactions between climate and demography. The relationship between weather and survival observed during regular years is likely to underestimate the importance of climate variation for population dynamics.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Elisabeth Wiprächtiger for help with data organisation, the numerous people who have ringed barn owls over the years, and David R. Anderson, Bradley R. Anholt, Leo Bruinzeel, Birgit Erni, Jean-Michel Gaillard, Martin Kainz, Laurent Keller, Michael Schaub, Hans Schmid, and the reviewers for helpful comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Thanks to the Swiss Meteorological Institute for providing weather data. Res Altwegg and Alexandre Roulin were supported by grants from the Swiss Science Foundation (no. 81ZH-68483 to R.A, and 823A-064710 and PP00A—102913 to A.R.), an NSERC of Canada research grant (to B. Anholt), and a fellowship from the South African National Research Foundation (to R.A.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada

    Res Altwegg

  2. Department of Statistical Sciences, Avian Demography Unit, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7701, Cape Town, South Africa

    Res Altwegg

  3. Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne, Biology Building, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Alexandre Roulin

  4. Swiss Ornithological Institute, 6204, Sempach, Switzerland

    Matthias Kestenholz & Lukas Jenni

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  1. Res Altwegg
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  2. Alexandre Roulin
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  3. Matthias Kestenholz
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  4. Lukas Jenni
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Correspondence to Res Altwegg.

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Communicated by Markku Orell

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Altwegg, R., Roulin, A., Kestenholz, M. et al. Demographic effects of extreme winter weather in the barn owl. Oecologia 149, 44–51 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-006-0430-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-006-0430-3

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