The relative importance of biotic and abiotic determinants of temporal occupancy for avian species in North America

Aim We examined the relative importance of competitor abundance and environmental variables in determining the species distributions of 175 bird species across North America. Unlike previous studies, which tend to model distributions in terms of presence and absence, we take advantage of a geographically extensive dataset of community time series to model the temporal occupancy of species at sites throughout their expected range. Location North America. Time period 2001-2015. Major taxa studied One hundred and seventy-five bird species. Methods We calculated variation in temporal occupancy across species' geographic ranges and used variance partitioning and Bayesian hierarchical models to evaluate the relative importance of (a) the abundance of potential competitors and (b) the environment (elevation, temperature, precipitation, vegetation index) for determining temporal occupancy. We also created a null model to test whether designated competitor species predicted variation in temporal occupancy better than non-competitor species. Results On average, the environment explained more variance in temporal occupancy than competitor abundance, but this varied by species. For certain species, competitor abundance explained more variance than the environment. Migrant species with smaller range sizes and greater range overlap with competitors had a higher proportion of variance explained by competitor abundance than the environment. The abundance of competitor species had a stronger effect on focal species temporal occupancy than non-competitor species in the null model. Main conclusions Temporal occupancy represents an underutilized method for describing species distributions that is complementary to presence/absence or abundance. Geographic variation in temporal occupancy was explained by both biotic and abiotic drivers, and abiotic drivers explained more variation in temporal occupancy than abundance on average. Species traits also play a role in determining whether variation in temporal occupancy is best explained by biotic or abiotic drivers. The results of our study can improve species distribution models, particularly by accounting for competitive interactions.