Thermal niche predicts tolerance to habitat conversion in tropical amphibians and reptiles
© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
| Veröffentlicht in: | Global change biology. - 1999. - 21(2015), 11 vom: 15. Nov., Seite 3901-16 |
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| Weitere Verfasser: | , |
| Format: | Online-Aufsatz |
| Sprache: | English |
| Veröffentlicht: |
2015
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| Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk: | Global change biology |
| Schlagworte: | Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Craugastor community ecology countryside biogeography deforestation ecophysiology land-use change performance temperature |
| Zusammenfassung: | © 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Habitat conversion is a major driver of the biodiversity crisis, yet why some species undergo local extinction while others thrive under novel conditions remains unclear. We suggest that focusing on species' niches, rather than traits, may provide the predictive power needed to forecast biodiversity change. We first examine two Neotropical frog congeners with drastically different affinities to deforestation and document how thermal niche explains deforestation tolerance. The more deforestation-tolerant species is associated with warmer macroclimates across Costa Rica, and warmer microclimates within landscapes. Further, in laboratory experiments, the more deforestation-tolerant species has critical thermal limits, and a jumping performance optimum, shifted ~2 °C warmer than those of the more forest-affiliated species, corresponding to the ~3 °C difference in daytime maximum temperature that these species experience between habitats. Crucially, neither species strictly specializes on either habitat - instead habitat use is governed by regional environmental temperature. Both species track temperature along an elevational gradient, and shift their habitat use from cooler forest at lower elevations to warmer deforested pastures upslope. To generalize these conclusions, we expand our analysis to the entire mid-elevational herpetological community of southern Costa Rica. We assess the climatological affinities of 33 amphibian and reptile species, showing that across both taxonomic classes, thermal niche predicts presence in deforested habitat as well as or better than many commonly used traits. These data suggest that warm-adapted species carry a significant survival advantage amidst the synergistic impacts of land-use conversion and climate change |
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| Beschreibung: | Date Completed 19.07.2016 Date Revised 14.10.2015 published: Print-Electronic Citation Status MEDLINE |
| ISSN: | 1365-2486 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/gcb.13016 |