Crossing boundaries in conservation physiology

Tomlinson, Sean; Rummer, Jodie L.; Cooke, Steven J.

doi:10.1093/conphys/coy015

Cited by 4 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To this end, multiple researchers are endeavoring to incorporate biological information into decision support tools (Miatta et al, 2021) but also try to limit those complexities to instances where such additions lead to measurable gains in confidence and/or accuracy. The nascent yet rapidly expanding fields of "conservation physiology" (Tomlinson et al, 2018) and "macrophysiology" (Chown & Gaston, 2008) thus have much to offer, especially when new gains in physiological understanding suggest subsequent new approaches in ecological modeling.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Recent studies have emphasized the importance but often neglected the role of sublethal effects of temperature on growth and reproduction which ultimately affect organism fitness, food web energy transfer and the stability of ecosystems (López‐Villalta, 2008). To forecast responses of organisms to future climate change, the incorporation of physiological thinking into ecology at a global scale is thus critical (Clarke, 2003; Tomlinson et al, 2018). Specifically, a mechanistic understanding of physiological responses to changing thermal conditions is a key for evaluating which species and populations are most likely to be “winners” or “losers” at any particular location (Chown, 2012; Pörtner & Farrell, 2008; Seebacher et al, 2015; Somero, 2010), which, in turn, can inform conservation interventions and spatial planning as well as facilitate an understanding of the potential for local adaptation (Gaston, 2009; Overgaard et al, 2014; Sanford & Kelly, 2011; Teal et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The desire to develop a set of easily defined “rules of thumb” is understandable and indeed necessary given the urgent need to enact conservation measures even in the face of incomplete information (Knight et al, 2008). However, such approaches ignore what can be very high variation in performance among individuals, which can serve as an impediment for how physiological studies can help to refine conservation physiology approaches (Tomlinson et al, 2018). For example, Dong et al (2017) showed that variation in the cardiac performance of three species of snails varied as much among individuals and populations as it did among species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Physiological determinants of biogeography: The importance of metabolic depression to heat tolerance

Liao

Gao-yang

Wang

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

A quantitative understanding of physiological thermal responses is vital for forecasting species distributional shifts in response to climate change. Many studies have focused on metabolic rate as a global metric for analyzing the sublethal effects of changing environments on physiology. Thermal performance curves (TPCs) have been suggested as a viable analytical framework, but standard TPCs may not fully capture physiological responses, due in part to failure to consider the process of metabolic depression. We derived a model based on the nonlinear regression of biological temperature‐dependent rate processes and built a heart rate data set for 26 species of intertidal molluscs distributed from 33°S to ~40°N. We then calculated physiological thermal performance limits with continuous heating using T1false/2H, the temperature at which heart rate is decreased to 50% of the maximal rate, as a more realistic measure of upper thermal limits. Results indicate that heat‐induced metabolic depression of cardiac performance is a common adaptive response that allows tolerance of harsh environments. Furthermore, our model accounted for the high inter‐individual variability in the shape of cardiac TPCs. We then used these TPCs to calculate physiological thermal safety margins (pTSM), the difference between the maximal operative temperature (95th percentile of field temperatures) and T1false/2H of each individual. Using pTSMs, we developed a physiological species distribution model (pSDM) to forecast future geographic distributions. pSDM results indicate that climate‐induced species range shifts are potentially less severe than predicted by a simple correlative SDM. Species with metabolic depression below the optimum temperature will be more thermal resistant at their warm trailing edges. High intraspecific variability further suggests that models based on species‐level vulnerability to environmental change may be problematic. This multi‐scale, mechanistic understanding that incorporates metabolic depression and inter‐individual variability in thermal response enables better predictions about the relationship between thermal stress and species distributions.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Physiological determinants of biogeography: The importance of metabolic depression to heat tolerance

Liao

Gao-yang

Wang

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…We recognize that science, particularly when addressing conservation and management, is often context-dependent and we therefore attempted to limit questions that were specific to an ecosystem or taxon. In almost all instances (not just in conservation physiology but in science more generally), there is no single study or experiment that will satisfactorily answer a question given the context specificity of most conservation physiology research, which spans ecosystems, taxa and biological scales ( Tomlinson et al, 2018 ). This is not ‘stamp collecting’ but rather a reality of the inherent complexity of both conservation problems and their solutions.…”

Section: Synthesis and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

One hundred research questions in conservation physiology for generating actionable evidence to inform conservation policy and practice

Cooke

Bergman

Madliger

et al. 2021

Conservation Physiology

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Environmental change and biodiversity loss are but two of the complex challenges facing conservation practitioners and policy makers. Relevant and robust scientific knowledge is critical for providing decision-makers with the actionable evidence needed to inform conservation decisions. In the Anthropocene, science that leads to meaningful improvements in biodiversity conservation, restoration and management is desperately needed. Conservation Physiology has emerged as a discipline that is well-positioned to identify the mechanisms underpinning population declines, predict responses to environmental change and test different in situ and ex situ conservation interventions for diverse taxa and ecosystems. Here we present a consensus list of 10 priority research themes. Within each theme we identify specific research questions (100 in total), answers to which will address conservation problems and should improve the management of biological resources. The themes frame a set of research questions related to the following: (i) adaptation and phenotypic plasticity; (ii) human–induced environmental change; (iii) human–wildlife interactions; (iv) invasive species; (v) methods, biomarkers and monitoring; (vi) policy, engagement and communication; (vii) pollution; (viii) restoration actions; (ix) threatened species; and (x) urban systems. The themes and questions will hopefully guide and inspire researchers while also helping to demonstrate to practitioners and policy makers the many ways in which physiology can help to support their decisions.

show abstract

“…Such an approach can promote our ability to predict organismal performance ( Pincebourde and Woods, 2020 ) by capturing short-term and geographically localized extreme conditions associated with events such as heat waves ( Maxwell et al., 2019 ; Amaya et al., 2023 ) or cold snaps that would be smoothed or averaged-out out by traditional coarse-scaled products. The nascent but rapidly expanding field of Conservation Physiology has played a key role in this endeavour by documenting the variability of both environmental drivers at fine scales and the sensitivity of organisms to those conditions ( Cooke and O’Connor, 2010 ; Tomlinson et al., 2018 ; Cooke et al., 2021 ; Seebacher et al., 2023 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Physiologically informed organismal climatologies reveal unexpected spatiotemporal trends in temperature

Foulk,

Gouhier,

Choi

et al. 2024

Conservation Physiology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Body temperature is universally recognized as a dominant driver of biological performance. Although the critical distinction between the temperature of an organism and its surrounding habitat has long been recognized, it remains common practice to assume that trends in air temperature—collected via remote sensing or weather stations—are diagnostic of trends in animal temperature and thus of spatiotemporal patterns of physiological stress and mortality risk. Here, by analysing long-term trends recorded by biomimetic temperature sensors designed to emulate intertidal mussel temperature across the US Pacific Coast, we show that trends in maximal organismal temperature (‘organismal climatologies’) during aerial exposure can differ substantially from those exhibited by co-located environmental data products. Specifically, using linear regression to compare maximal organismal and environmental (air temperature) climatologies, we show that not only are the magnitudes of body and air temperature markedly different, as expected, but so are their temporal trends at both local and biogeographic scales, with some sites showing significant decadal-scale increases in organismal temperature despite reductions in air temperature, or vice versa. The idiosyncratic relationship between the spatiotemporal patterns of organismal and air temperatures suggests that environmental climatology cannot be statistically corrected to serve as an accurate proxy for organismal climatology. Finally, using quantile regression, we show that spatiotemporal trends vary across the distribution of organismal temperature, with extremes shifting in different directions and at different rates than average metrics. Overall, our results highlight the importance of quantifying changes in the entire distribution of temperature to better predict biological performance and dispel the notion that raw or ‘corrected’ environmental (and specially air temperature) climatologies can be used to predict organismal temperature trends. Hence, despite their widespread coverage and availability, the severe limitations of environmental climatologies suggest that their role in conservation and management policy should be carefully considered.

show abstract

Crossing boundaries in conservation physiology

Cited by 4 publications

References 56 publications

Physiological determinants of biogeography: The importance of metabolic depression to heat tolerance

Physiological determinants of biogeography: The importance of metabolic depression to heat tolerance

One hundred research questions in conservation physiology for generating actionable evidence to inform conservation policy and practice

Physiologically informed organismal climatologies reveal unexpected spatiotemporal trends in temperature

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About