Valdez Vasco, Ferreras Pablo, Rosalino Luís Miguel
CE3C - Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Change & CHANGE - Global Change and Sustainability Institute, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal.
Instituto de Investigación en Recursos Cinegéticos, IREC (CSIC-UCLM-JCCM), Ciudad Real, Spain.
Glob Chang Biol. 2025 Jun;31(6):e70302. doi: 10.1111/gcb.70302.
Climate change is a major threat to biodiversity, affecting a wide range of species in different ecological networks. Higher trophic level species, such as mesocarnivores, are particularly affected due to bottom-up and top-down cascading effects. The magnitude of climate change impacts on mesocarnivores may vary between regions and taxonomic groups, but this variation is poorly understood. We reviewed 119 articles on the effects of climate change on mesocarnivores (Order Carnivora). We found an increase in studies of climate change effects over time, with canids and mustelids being the most studied carnivores, and herpestids, procyonids, viverrids and ailurids being the least studied. Most of the identified studies were from Europe, followed by North and South America. Africa and Oceania had fewer published studies. The most common approach to assessing the impact of climate change on carnivores was based on the study of species spatial ecology and habitat use, but also on population and community ecology. We used 21 of those articles that used ecological niche modelling to assess future distribution changes as the basis for our meta-analysis. Our results show that although some habitat generalists, mainly canids and procyonids, with a wide range of habitats may benefit from climate change, most mesocarnivores are likely to experience range contractions. However, this general pattern varies among carnivore families. Species from arid environments, as well as those that are specialists in montane and tropical forests, are likely to experience the largest declines in range. This is especially true for species from Africa, Asia and South America, as these regions are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Our study highlights that climate change affects carnivores in different ways and that there is also regional variation in impacts; therefore, conservation efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change should be tailored to each continent and species.
气候变化是生物多样性面临的主要威胁，影响着不同生态网络中的广泛物种。较高营养级的物种，如中型食肉动物，由于自下而上和自上而下的级联效应而受到特别影响。气候变化对中型食肉动物的影响程度可能因地区和分类群而异，但这种差异目前了解甚少。我们回顾了119篇关于气候变化对中型食肉动物（食肉目）影响的文章。我们发现，随着时间的推移，关于气候变化影响的研究有所增加，犬科动物和鼬科动物是研究最多的食肉动物，而獴科、浣熊科、灵猫科和小熊猫科动物的研究最少。大多数已确定的研究来自欧洲，其次是北美洲和南美洲。非洲和大洋洲发表的研究较少。评估气候变化对食肉动物影响的最常见方法是基于对物种空间生态学和栖息地利用的研究，但也基于种群和群落生态学。我们使用了其中21篇利用生态位建模来评估未来分布变化的文章作为我们荟萃分析的基础。我们的结果表明，尽管一些栖息地通才，主要是犬科动物和浣熊科动物，具有广泛的栖息地，可能会从气候变化中受益，但大多数中型食肉动物可能会经历分布范围的收缩。然而，这种总体模式在食肉动物家族之间有所不同。来自干旱环境的物种，以及山地和热带森林的专家物种，其分布范围可能会出现最大幅度的下降。对于来自非洲、亚洲和南美洲的物种尤其如此，因为这些地区特别容易受到气候变化的影响。我们的研究强调，气候变化以不同方式影响食肉动物，而且影响也存在区域差异；因此，减轻气候变化影响的保护措施应针对每个大陆和物种量身定制。
