book review: Look northward to the boreal, the home of many migrating birds

ISSN 1948‐6596 news and update book review Look northward to the boreal, the home of many migrating birds Boreal birds of North America: A hemispheric view of their conservation links and significance, by Jeffrey V. Wells (editor), 2011, Studies in Avian Biology No. 41, University of California Press, 136 pp. £30.95 (Hardback) ISBN: 9780520271005; http://www.ucpress.edu/ To many people, the term “boreal forest” evokes an image of a vast, cold, and inaccessible wilder‐ ness far from home. Most of us live south of the boreal, and when we think of bird diversity we tend to look toward the tropics, where species diversity is high and species range size tends to be small, placing many species under threat of extinc‐ tion due to human‐caused habitat destruction. This book provides an eye‐opening look to the north, strongly demonstrating the importance of North America’s boreal forest to avian biodiversity both there and throughout the Americas via sea‐ sonal migration. The book also shows that, while being one of the largest wilderness areas left on the planet, the boreal forest is under growing threat. Despite its small size for an edited volume (9 chapters totaling 125 pages), this book presents a remarkably balanced and comprehensive over‐ view of the biogeography, ecology, and conserva‐ tion of the boreal birds of North America. Most chapters focus on broad biogeographic patterns; these include contributions on the threats to the boreal forest, the global role of the boreal in sus‐ taining bird populations, the use of survey data in geospatial modeling of bird abundance, and the role of boreal migrants in winter bird communities far to the south. These are supplemented by con‐ tributions that focus on geographically more nar‐ row areas, including chapters on waterfowl con‐ servation in the western boreal forest, boreal landbird migrants in eastern North America, and boreal migrants in the tropical Andes. Finally, two contributions provide examples of in‐depth re‐ search on two species that have experienced alarming declines: surf scoters and rusty black‐ birds. The mix of broad‐scale overviews with fo‐ cused looks at individual species in decline leaves the reader with a remarkably rich understanding of the importance of the boreal forest and the research being undertaken (and needed in the future) to better understand and protect its avi‐ fauna. Some remarkable statistics emerge from this book. Spanning from interior Alaska across the continent to Newfoundland, North America's boreal forest covers 5.9 million km 2 , representing 25% of remaining intact forests on Earth. Over 300 bird species regularly breed there, accounting for 43% of all species that regularly occur in Canada and/or the U.S. The total number of adult boreal breeders is estimated at somewhere between 1.65 and 3 billion, accounting for 30% of all breed‐ ing landbirds of Canada and the U.S., 38% of wa‐ terfowl, and 30% of shorebirds. Between 3 and 5 billion adults and immature birds migrate south from the boreal every fall; during the northern winter, they play important ecological roles in North, Central, and South America, where they can comprise up to 50% of the species composi‐ tion in some feeding guilds. While the above num‐ bers are impressive, the threats to boreal birds are as well. From 1966 to 1994, Saskatchewan’s boreal plain was deforested at a rate of 0.89% per year, three times the global rate of deforestation, and rates of boreal forest disturbance due to oil and gas exploration, hydropower projects, agricul‐ ture, and other industrial development are also alarming. One of the strengths of this book is that it goes beyond the presentation of patterns, and argues for a subtle change in conservation values. While traditional approaches to conservation have emphasized rarity and endemism in prioritizing conservation efforts, Wells and Blancher (p. 8) advance the idea that “some regions have a high stewardship responsibility for maintaining species that are still abundant.” This point is well taken, frontiers of biogeography 4.3, 2012 — © 2012 the authors; journal compilation © 2012 The International Biogeography Society

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