Climate change is predicted to cause population collapse in a cooperative breeder

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.

Dispersal and connectivity in increasingly extreme climatic conditions

“…Lower connectivity and prolonged dispersal durations due to adverse environmental conditions will inevitably result in increased energetic expenditures and exposure to various threats such as predation, competition, human encounters, and diseases (Alberts & Altmann, 1995; Bonte et al., 2012; Stamps et al., 2005; Yoder, 2004), thus further jeopardizing dispersal success and its effect on population dynamics. Higher ambient temperatures have previously been associated with negative effects on wild dog reproductive success (Abrahms et al., 2022; Woodroffe et al., 2017), survival (Rabaiotti et al., 2021), and, consequently, population persistence (Rabaiotti et al., 2023). The negative effect of hotter climatic conditions on local population survival and recruitment may be further exacerbated by reduced dispersal success and connectivity in case of amplified flooding regimes.…”

Climate change, its impact on emerging infectious diseases and new technologies to combat the challenge

“…The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, and the rapid global circulation of its variant strains, highlight the need for a collaborative, worldwide framework for infectious disease detection, prevention, and treatment that employs new technologies that have recently become available [ 79 ]. There is a growing need to forecast the future burden of specific EIDs under different climate change scenarios through models that integrate retrospective information from past epidemic or pandemics and climate conditions data [ 80 ]. It is vital to establish global strategies to track and model potential responses of candidate EIDs to altered climate conditions to project their future behaviour and guide research on early detection and diagnosis technologies and vaccine development for these targets.…”

Increased offspring size and reduced gestation length in an ectothermic vertebrate under a worst-case climate change scenario

“…In a time of rapidly changing environmental temperatures, it is increasingly important to elucidate how altered thermal conditions impact the coordination of important life history stages and essential events such as mating, gestation, and foraging. Because reproductive success is a defining feature of individual fitness, factors that greatly impact reproduction among individuals within a population have the potential to dramatically affect the long-term success and survival of that population (Brommer et al, 2002; Sherman and Runge, 2002; Rabaiotti et al, 2023). Ectotherms are influenced particularly strongly by environmental conditions, especially temperature, which is frequently an important cue used to coordinate behavior and physiological processes essential to reproductive success including courtship behavior and successful incubation or gestation (Huey and Stevenson, 1979; Huey, 1982; Miles et al, 2000; Lourdias et al, 2013).…”

“…In a time of rapidly changing environmental temperatures, it is increasingly important to elucidate how altered thermal conditions impact the coordination of important life history stages and essential events such as mating, gestation, and foraging. Because reproductive success is a defining feature of individual fitness, factors that greatly impact reproduction among individuals within a population have the potential to dramatically affect the long-term success and survival of that population (Brommer et al, 2002;Sherman and Runge, 2002;Rabaiotti et al, 2023).…”