Vane Lauren S, Arbon Josh J, Morris-Drake Amy, Kern Julie M, Radford Andrew N
School of Biological Sciences University of Bristol Bristol UK.
School of Environmental and Rural Science University of New England Armidale New South Wales Australia.
Ecol Evol. 2025 Sep 5;15(9):e71963. doi: 10.1002/ece3.71963. eCollection 2025 Sep.
High temperatures associated with climate change can have adverse effects on wildlife, but behavioural plasticity may buffer such negative effects. Using long-term data from wild dwarf mongooses (), we investigated the impact of high temperatures on daily activity patterns, movement and body mass. On hot days (≥ 35°C) compared with matched cooler ones (≤ 33°C), groups emerged from their overnight sleeping burrow and commenced foraging earlier in the morning and arrived at their overnight sleeping burrow later in the evening. However, there was no evidence that the time spent above ground at the burrow, the proportion of time inactive or the distance moved when foraging were altered on hot days. Consequently, the negative effects of high temperatures were not fully mitigated, as both adults and pups gained less body mass on hot days compared with cooler days. This loss was not compensated fully in the day after a hot day, and evening body mass of adults decreased with an increasing number of consecutive hot days. Together, these results suggest that there are potentially escalating consequences of hot weather for wildlife, especially those species that exhibit limited behavioural plasticity, in an ever-warming world.
与气候变化相关的高温会对野生动物产生不利影响，但行为可塑性可能会缓冲这些负面影响。我们利用野生矮猫鼬的长期数据，研究了高温对日常活动模式、移动和体重的影响。与匹配的较凉爽日子（≤33°C）相比，在炎热的日子（≥35°C），群体从夜间睡眠洞穴出来，早上更早开始觅食，晚上更晚回到夜间睡眠洞穴。然而，没有证据表明在炎热的日子里，在洞穴地面上停留的时间、不活动时间的比例或觅食时移动的距离会发生改变。因此，高温的负面影响并未得到充分缓解，因为与较凉爽的日子相比，成年猫鼬和幼崽在炎热的日子里体重增加较少。在炎热的一天之后，这种体重损失在次日并未得到完全补偿，并且成年猫鼬的夜间体重随着连续炎热天数的增加而下降。总之，这些结果表明，在不断变暖的世界中，炎热天气对野生动物，尤其是那些行为可塑性有限的物种，可能会产生不断升级的后果。
