White‐nose syndrome (WNS), caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans (Pd), ranks among the most devastating wildlife diseases in recent history and is driving severe declines in North American bats. Identifying environmental factors that influence both the severity of population crashes and the potential for population persistence is essential for effective mitigation. We used a long‐term dataset from hibernacula acros...

Functional traits offer a rich quantitative framework for developing and testing theories in evolutionary biology, ecology and ecosystem science. However, the potential of functional traits to drive theoretical advances and refine models of global change can only be fully realised when species‐level information is complete. Here we present the AVONET dataset containing comprehensive functional trait data for all birds, includi...

How are rainforest birds faring in the Anthropocene? We use bird captures spanning > 35 years from 55 sites within a vast area of intact Amazonian rainforest to reveal reduced abundance of terrestrial and near‐ground insectivores in the absence of deforestation, edge effects or other direct anthropogenic landscape change. Because undisturbed forest includes far fewer terrestrial and near‐ground insectivores than it did histori...

Changes in climate can indirectly regulate populations at higher trophic levels by influencing the availability of food resources in the lower reaches of the food web. As such, species that rely on fruit and nectar food resources may be particularly sensitive to these bottom‐up perturbations due to the strength of their trophic linkages with climatically‐influenced plants. To measure the influence of climatically‐mediated, bot...