Rabaiotti, Daniella;
Coulson, Tim;
Woodroffe, Rosie;
(2023)
Climate change is predicted to cause population collapse in a cooperative breeder.
Global Change Biology
10.1111/gcb.16890.
(In press).
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Abstract
It has been suggested that animals may have evolved cooperative breeding strategies in response to extreme climatic conditions. Climate change, however, may push species beyond their ability to cope with extreme climates, and reduce the group sizes in cooperatively breeding species to a point where populations are no longer viable. Predicting the impact of future climates on these species is challenging as modelling the impact of climate change on their population dynamics requires information on both group- and individual-level responses to climatic conditions. Using a single-sex individual-based model incorporating demographic responses to ambient temperature in an endangered species, the African wild dog Lycaon pictus, we show that there is a threshold temperature above which populations of the species are predicted to collapse. For simulated populations with carrying capacities equivalent to the median size of real-world populations (nine packs), extinction risk increases once temperatures exceed those predicted in the best-case climate warming scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway [RCP] 2.6). The threshold is higher (between RCP 4.5 and RCP 6.0) for larger simulated populations (30 packs), but 84% of real-world populations number <30 packs. Simulated populations collapsed because, at high ambient temperatures, juvenile survival was so low that packs were no longer recruiting enough individuals to persist, leading them to die out. This work highlights the importance of social dynamics in determining impacts of climatic variables on social species, and the critical role that recruitment can play in driving population-level impacts of climate change. Population models parameterised on long-term data are essential for predicting future population viability under climate change.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Climate change is predicted to cause population collapse in a cooperative breeder |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/gcb.16890 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16890 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third-party material in this article are included in the Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
| Keywords: | Lycaon pictus, climate change, demography, individual-based model, mammal, populations, social species, temperature |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10175999 |
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