Global climate warming, now conclusively linked to anthropogenically-increased CO₂ levels in the earth\'s atmosphere, has already had impacts on the earth\'s biodiversity and is predicted to threaten more than 1 million species with extinction by 2050.
Climate change in southern Africa is expected to involve higher temperatures and lower rainfall, with less predictability and a greater frequency of severe storms, fires and El Niño events. The predicted changes to birds in Africa — the continent most at risk from climate change — have hardly been explored, yet birds and many other vertebrates face uncertain futures. Here, in one of the first focused analyses of the correlates of climate change vulnerability in southern African birds, we offer a wide-ranging perspective on which species may be most at risk, and explore which traits may influence the adaptability or extinction
risk of bird species.


Our review suggests that small nomadic species with short generation times may be least at risk. While larger-bodied species may be physiologically buffered against environmental change, their longer generation times may make them less able to adapt
evolutionarily to climate change. Migrant species, and those with specialised feeding niches such as pollinators, are also predicted to be at risk of population declines, based on low ability to adapt to new environments when introduced there as aliens. Species with small ranges (