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Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change

Climate change threatens global biodiversity by increasing extinction risk, yet few studies have uncovered a physiological basis of climate-driven species declines. Maintaining a stable body temperature is a fundamental requirement for homeothermic animals, and water is a vital resource that facilit...

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Autores principales: Riddell, Eric A., Iknayan, Kelly J., Wolf, Blair O., Sinervo, Barry, Beissinger, Steven R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: National Academy of Sciences 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815107/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31570585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908791116
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author Riddell, Eric A.
Iknayan, Kelly J.
Wolf, Blair O.
Sinervo, Barry
Beissinger, Steven R.
author_facet Riddell, Eric A.
Iknayan, Kelly J.
Wolf, Blair O.
Sinervo, Barry
Beissinger, Steven R.
author_sort Riddell, Eric A.
collection PubMed
description Climate change threatens global biodiversity by increasing extinction risk, yet few studies have uncovered a physiological basis of climate-driven species declines. Maintaining a stable body temperature is a fundamental requirement for homeothermic animals, and water is a vital resource that facilitates thermoregulation through evaporative cooling, especially in hot environments. Here, we explore the potential for thermoregulatory costs to underlie the community collapse of birds in the Mojave Desert over the past century in response to climate change. The probability of persistence was lowest for species occupying the warmest and driest sites, which imposed the greatest cooling costs. We developed a general model of heat flux to evaluate whether water requirements for evaporative cooling contributed to species’ declines by simulating thermoregulatory costs in the Mojave Desert for 50 bird species representing the range of observed declines. Bird species’ declines were positively associated with climate-driven increases in water requirements for evaporative cooling and exacerbated by large body size, especially for species with animal-based diets. Species exhibiting reductions in body size across their range saved up to 14% in cooling costs and experienced less decline than species without size reductions, suggesting total cooling costs as a mechanism underlying Bergmann’s rule. Reductions in body size, however, are unlikely to offset the 50 to 78% increase in cooling costs threatening desert birds from future climate change. As climate change spreads warm, dry conditions across the planet, water requirements are increasingly likely to drive population declines, providing a physiological basis for climate-driven extinctions.
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spelling pubmed-68151072019-10-30 Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change Riddell, Eric A. Iknayan, Kelly J. Wolf, Blair O. Sinervo, Barry Beissinger, Steven R. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A Biological Sciences Climate change threatens global biodiversity by increasing extinction risk, yet few studies have uncovered a physiological basis of climate-driven species declines. Maintaining a stable body temperature is a fundamental requirement for homeothermic animals, and water is a vital resource that facilitates thermoregulation through evaporative cooling, especially in hot environments. Here, we explore the potential for thermoregulatory costs to underlie the community collapse of birds in the Mojave Desert over the past century in response to climate change. The probability of persistence was lowest for species occupying the warmest and driest sites, which imposed the greatest cooling costs. We developed a general model of heat flux to evaluate whether water requirements for evaporative cooling contributed to species’ declines by simulating thermoregulatory costs in the Mojave Desert for 50 bird species representing the range of observed declines. Bird species’ declines were positively associated with climate-driven increases in water requirements for evaporative cooling and exacerbated by large body size, especially for species with animal-based diets. Species exhibiting reductions in body size across their range saved up to 14% in cooling costs and experienced less decline than species without size reductions, suggesting total cooling costs as a mechanism underlying Bergmann’s rule. Reductions in body size, however, are unlikely to offset the 50 to 78% increase in cooling costs threatening desert birds from future climate change. As climate change spreads warm, dry conditions across the planet, water requirements are increasingly likely to drive population declines, providing a physiological basis for climate-driven extinctions. National Academy of Sciences 2019-10-22 2019-09-30 /pmc/articles/PMC6815107/ /pubmed/31570585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908791116 Text en Copyright © 2019 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Biological Sciences
Riddell, Eric A.
Iknayan, Kelly J.
Wolf, Blair O.
Sinervo, Barry
Beissinger, Steven R.
Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change
title Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change
title_full Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change
title_fullStr Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change
title_full_unstemmed Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change
title_short Cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change
title_sort cooling requirements fueled the collapse of a desert bird community from climate change
topic Biological Sciences
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815107/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31570585
http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1908791116
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