Exposure to climate change drives stability or collapse of desert mammal and bird communities

Exposure to climate change drives stability or collapse of desert mammal and bird communities

High exposure to warming from climate change is expected to threaten biodiversity by pushing many species toward extinction. Such exposure is often assessed for all taxa at a location from climate projections, yet species have diverse strategies for buffering against temperature extremes. We compare...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Vol. 371; no. 6529; pp. 633 - 636
Main Authors: Riddell, E A, Iknayan, K J, Hargrove, L, Tremor, S, Patton, J L, Ramirez, R, Wolf, B O, Beissinger, S R
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States The American Association for the Advancement of Science 05-02-2021
Subjects:
Animals
Biodiversity
Birds
Buffers
Climate
Climate Change
Community Relations
Desert Climate
Deserts
Drying
Ecosystem
Exposure
Extinction, Biological
Extreme Heat
Habitat utilization
Habitats
Heat flux
Heat transfer
Mammals
Microclimate
Microenvironments
Microhabitats
Occupancy
Polls & surveys
Protected areas
Small mammals
Species extinction
Species richness
Temperature
Threatened species
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Summary:High exposure to warming from climate change is expected to threaten biodiversity by pushing many species toward extinction. Such exposure is often assessed for all taxa at a location from climate projections, yet species have diverse strategies for buffering against temperature extremes. We compared changes in species occupancy and site-level richness of small mammal and bird communities in protected areas of the Mojave Desert using surveys spanning a century. Small mammal communities remained remarkably stable, whereas birds declined markedly in response to warming and drying. Simulations of heat flux identified different exposure to warming for birds and mammals, which we attribute to microhabitat use. Estimates from climate projections are unlikely to accurately reflect species' exposure without accounting for the effects of microhabitat buffering on heat flux.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.abd4605