Fynbos Endemic Birds: Densities and distributions in relation to vegetation structure and weather Dr Alan Lee, Post-Doctoral Fellow, PFIAO and SANBI

The Fynbos Biome is home to six (1/3rd) of South Africa's endemic bird species. The biome is vulnerable to climate change as there is little room to move in order to maintain current temperature space. Increase in fire frequencies have been reported, and changes in rainfall patterns are also projected. Loss of suitable range was predicted for a suite of Fynbos bird species nearly 10 years ago, and a recent review of South African Bird Atlas Project data hinted that the predictions made were becoming a reality as Fynbos endemic birds were faring poorly compared to generalist species. I present preliminary data on bird occurrence and density in relation to environmental variables and surrogate variables for climate in terms of temperature and aridity gradients. These variables will be useful in determining density and distributions under future climate change scenarios for some of South Africa's most important bird species.