Sergio, F., Tavecchia, G., Blas, J., Taferna, A., Hiraldo, F., Korpimaki, E., and Beissinger, S. R. 2022. Hardship at birth alters the impact of climate change on a long-lived predator.
Nature Communication 13, 5517 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33011-7
Summary: |
Photo: es.wikipedia.org
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Climate change is increasing the frequency of extreme events, such as
droughts or hurricanes, with substantial impacts on human and wildlife
communities. Extreme events can affect individuals through two pathways:
by altering the fitness of adults encountering a current extreme, and
by affecting the development of individuals born during a natal extreme,
a largely overlooked process. Here, we show that the impact of natal
drought on an avian predator overrode the effect of current drought for
decades, so that individuals born during drought were disadvantaged
throughout life. Incorporation of natal effects caused a 40% decline in
forecasted population size and a 21% shortening of time to extinction.
These results imply that climate change may erode populations more
quickly and severely than currently appreciated, suggesting the urgency
to incorporate “penalties” for natal legacies in the analytical toolkit
of impact forecasts. Similar double impacts may apply to other drivers
of global change.
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