Abstract
Changing drought regimes is a rising threat to biodiversity, but
reported drought impacts on species varied greatly. Acknowledging the
factors associating with these impacts will bring novel understandings
to species vulnerability to the changes of extreme climatic events, and
facilitate effective mitigation of climate change risks. By compiling
the responses of 172 bird species to droughts from global publications,
we found bird abundance generally declined for severe droughts lasting
over a year. Drought-induced declines in abundance were identified for
species feeding on invertebrates, fruits or nectar. Species of a smaller
range showed lower reproductive performance during or after droughts. In
addition to these factors, a small clutch size also contributed to the
reductions in bird abundance or reproductive performance under severe
droughts. In the regions where the duration and/or intensity of severe
droughts increase, bird species with above susceptible traits would
confront greater risks to survival.