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Predicting potential responses to future climate in an alpine ungulate: interspecific interactions exceed climate effects

Mason, T.H.E.; Stephens, P.A.; Apollonio, M.; Willis, S.G.

Predicting potential responses to future climate in an alpine ungulate: interspecific interactions exceed climate effects Thumbnail


Authors

T.H.E. Mason

M. Apollonio



Abstract

The altitudinal shifts of many montane populations are lagging behind climate change. Understanding habitual, daily behavioural rhythms, and their climatic and environmental influences, could shed light on the constraints on long-term upslope range-shifts. In addition, behavioural rhythms can be affected by interspecific interactions, which can ameliorate or exacerbate climate-driven effects on ecology. Here, we investigate the relative influences of ambient temperature and an interaction with domestic sheep (Ovis aries) on the altitude use and activity budgets of a mountain ungulate, the Alpine chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra). Chamois moved upslope when it was hotter but this effect was modest compared to that of the presence of sheep, to which they reacted by moving 89–103 m upslope, into an entirely novel altitudinal range. Across the European Alps, a range-shift of this magnitude corresponds to a 46% decrease in the availability of suitable foraging habitat. This highlights the importance of understanding how factors such as competition and disturbance shape a given species’ realised niche when predicting potential future responses to change. Furthermore, it exposes the potential for manipulations of species interactions to ameliorate the impacts of climate change, in this case by the careful management of livestock. Such manipulations could be particularly appropriate for species where competition or disturbance already strongly restricts their available niche. Our results also reveal the potential role of behavioural flexibility in responses to climate change. Chamois reduced their activity when it was warmer, which could explain their modest altitudinal migrations. Considering this behavioural flexibility, our model predicts a small 15–30 m upslope shift by 2100 in response to climate change, less than 4% of the altitudinal shift that would be predicted using a traditional species distribution model-type approach (SDM), which assumes that species’ behaviour remains unchanged as climate changes. Behavioural modifications could strongly affect how species respond to a changing climate.

Citation

Mason, T., Stephens, P., Apollonio, M., & Willis, S. (2014). Predicting potential responses to future climate in an alpine ungulate: interspecific interactions exceed climate effects. Global Change Biology, 20(12), 3872-3882. https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12641

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date May 22, 2014
Online Publication Date Jun 23, 2014
Publication Date Dec 1, 2014
Deposit Date Apr 25, 2014
Publicly Available Date Jun 24, 2014
Journal Global Change Biology
Print ISSN 1354-1013
Electronic ISSN 1365-2486
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 20
Issue 12
Pages 3872-3882
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.12641
Keywords Activity budget, Atitudinal migration, Behaviour, Behavioural thermoregulation, Chamois, Climate change, Interspecific interactions, Range-shift, Temperature, Ungulate.
Public URL https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1466201

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Published Journal Article (Advance online version) (382 Kb)
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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Copyright Statement
Advance online version © 2014 The Authors. Global Change Biology Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.






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