No abstract

Amphibians and reptiles will be adversely affected by projected rapid changes in climate in the next decades. Here, we review the known and potential impacts of climate change on the Southeast Asian amphibians and reptiles and make mitigation recommendations for both research and policy. Current amphibian and reptile distributions and ecologies mirror climate patterns, and we expect that adaptation to changes in these parameters will be too slow relative to their rate of expected change, and that pervasive changes will occur to species assemblages, communities, and ecosystem functioning and services. Southest Asia is a network of islands with relatively few mountains, effectively preventing most herpetofauna from migrating away from the effects of climate change. Reflecting specific known and hypothesized physiological and ecological thresholds, we estimate that in \50 years, amphibians and reptiles in Southeast Asia will have reached or exceeded most limits in their abilities to adapt to the effects of climate change and that temperature dependent sex determination, higher metabolic rates, and less bio-available water will have severe and irreversible effects on these organisms. We suggest that human decision-making and policy development have already lagged and that societal change is happening too slowly for effective mitigation. If we are to avert devastating loss of biodiversity and a complete meltdown of ecosystem services, we must quickly change our attitudes and thinking about how we interact with and use biological systems.

Changes in body size and breeding phenology have been identified as two major ecological consequences of climate change, yet it remains unclear whether climate acts directly or indirectly on these variables. To better understand the relationship between climate and ecological changes, it is necessary to determine environmental predictors of both size and phenology using data from prior to the onset of rapid climate warming, and then to examine spatially explicit changes in climate, size, and phenology, not just general spatial and temporal trends. We used 100 years of natural history collection data for the wood frog, Lithobates sylvaticus with a range >9 million km2, and spatially explicit environmental data to determine the best predictors of size and phenology prior to rapid climate warming (1901–1960). We then tested how closely size and phenology changes predicted by those environmental variables reflected actual changes from 1961 to 2000. Size, phenology, and climate all changed as expected (smaller, earlier, and warmer, respectively) at broad spatial scales across the entire study range. However, while spatially explicit changes in climate variables accurately predicted changes in phenology, they did not accurately predict size changes during recent climate change (1961–2000), contrary to expectations from numerous recent studies. Our results suggest that changes in climate are directly linked to observed phenological shifts. However, the mechanisms driving observed body size changes are yet to be determined, given the less straightforward relationship between size and climate factors examined in this study. We recommend that caution be used in “space‐for‐time” studies where measures of a species’ traits at lower latitudes or elevations are considered representative of those under future projected climate conditions. Future studies should aim to determine mechanisms driving trends in phenology and body size, as well as the impact of climate on population density, which may influence body size.

DSOCP system provides enhanced diagnostic yield, shorter procedure times and less radiation exposure compared to FSOCP system.