Climate warming and selective adaptation to thermal refugia
- Taranjot Kaur
, - Smita Deb,
- Partha Sharathi Dutta
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Partha Sharathi Dutta
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Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Ropar, Rupnagar
Author ProfileAbstract
The impact of climate warming on biodiversity loss is exacerbated not
only by changes in mean but also by spatio-temporal variability in
temperature. Access to refugia can mitigate the impact of thermal
fluctuations amongst species. The effectiveness of refugia during
periods of adverse warming scenarios, i.e., seasonal fluctuations,
hotter-than-average summers, and warmer-than-average winters remains
largely unexplored. Here, we study a bio-energetic consumer-resource
model and identify the mixed success of refugia in maintaining species
persistence and stability, depending on the amplitude of fluctuations,
diverse warming scenarios, and species body size. Whilst refugia
withhold otherwise inevitable extinction at high amplitude fluctuations
in all the warming scenarios, at lower amplitudes, they may not provide
similar benefits. This arises due to non-monotone thermal responses of
their foraging efforts and monotonically increasing metabolic
requirements. The qualitative difference among thermal responses leads
to more energy losses rather than gains at low amplitudes. We find that
refugia are most beneficial during hotter summers and least during
typical seasonal fluctuations. Our results also suggest that refugia can
be more favourable to species in temperate and Mediterranean regions,
unlike those inhabiting tropical regions. We also consider an extreme
heat wave event and observe that small-bodied species can counteract
their negative effects by seeking refuge at low amplitudes. Overall, our
work hints at selective adaptation to refugia - conditioned on the
aggregated effect of thermal conditions of the local habitat and species
body size - as a mechanism for biodiversity maintenance.