In our project area, we investigate the effects of global climate and land-use change on the biodiversity and range dynamics of vertebrates, especially of birds. We focus on ecosystem consequences of these changes at all organizational levels including geographic ranges, species diversity, community structure, and population dynamics. To account for the immense complexity of ecological systems, we explicitly use a pluralistic approach by working on different spatial and temporal scales and combining a variety of different methods such as field observations and experiments, telemetry, computer simulations, and phylogenetic and macroecological analyses.