MACROECOLOGICAL PATTERNS IN BRITISH BREEDING BIRDS - COVARIATION OF SPECIES GEOGRAPHICAL RANGE SIZES AT DIFFERING SPATIAL SCALES

The availability of high quality data on the distribution and abundanc e of British birds at the national scale means that this fauna is the basis for a growing body of macroecological study. Nevertheless, quest ions remain about how representative of wider patterns the distributio ns and abundances of birds in Britain may be. Here, we use data on the British, European and global breeding distributions of British birds to show that species that are widespread in Britain also tend to be wi despread across larger regions. These results hold for both residents and migrants separately, and when controlling for the phylogenetic rel atedness of species. Species with wide latitudinal spans in Europe als o tend to have large British ranges, with the largest British ranges e xhibited by species inhabiting mid-latitudes in Europe. These results demonstrate that the distributions of birds within Britain are not sim ply idiosyncratic, but do reflect aspects of their broader distributio ns.