Lack of phenological shift leads to increased camouflage mismatch in mountain hares

Zímová, Markéta; Giery, Sean T.; Newey, Scott; Nowak, J. Joshua; Spencer, Michael; Mills, L. Scott

doi:10.1098/rspb.2020.1786

Cited by 21 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 72 publications

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“…Snowshoe hares undergo seasonal molts to match their background, between a uniform brown coat in summer and a uniform white in winter, with intermediate phases of brown and white patches during the seasonal transitions in autumn and spring. In a series of studies on phenotypic plasticity of snow-shoe hares (Lepus americanus) in response to decreased snow cover and mismatches with coat color, researchers used data collected over 3 years on snowpack and color polyphenism to illustrate the extent of seasonal mismatch and associated mortality (Mills et al, 2013;Zimova et al, 2016Zimova et al, , 2020a. A large portion of mortality is directly attributed to predation, making their predator interactions a primary selective pressure for local adaptations.…”

Section: Climate Change In Mammalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal Coloration in the Anthropocene

Koneru

Caro

2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Natural habitats are increasingly affected by anthropogenically driven environmental changes resulting from habitat destruction, chemical and light pollution, and climate change. Organisms inhabiting such habitats are faced with novel disturbances that can alter their modes of signaling. Coloration is one such sensory modality whose production, perception and function is being affected by human-induced disturbances. Animals that acquire pigment derivatives through diet are adversely impacted by the introduction of chemical pollutants into their environments as well as by general loss of natural habitat due to urbanization or logging leading to declines in pigment sources. Those species that do manage to produce color-based signals and displays may face disruptions to their signaling medium in the form of light pollution and turbidity. Furthermore, forest fragmentation and the resulting breaks in canopy cover can expose animals to predation due to the influx of light into previously dark environments. Global climate warming has been decreasing snow cover in arctic regions, causing birds and mammals that undergo seasonal molts to appear conspicuous against a snowless background. Ectotherms that rely on color for thermoregulation are under pressure to change their appearances. Rapid changes in habitat type through severe fire events or coral bleaching also challenge animals to match their backgrounds. Through this review, we aim to describe the wide-ranging impacts of anthropogenic environmental changes on visual ecology and suggest directions for the use of coloration both as an indicator of ecological change and as a tool for conservation.

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Section: Climate Change In Mammalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal Coloration in the Anthropocene

Koneru

Caro

2022

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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“…Without considering such ecological mismatches, restoring predators to disturbed communities can have unanticipated consequences (Reznick et al 2008). For example, mountain hares in northeast Scotland did not adapt their molt phenology to decreasing snow cover and currently experience a nearly two‐fold increase in camouflage mismatch since the 1950s (Zimova et al 2020). However, hares persist in these areas likely because their predators, including golden eagles Aquila chrysaetos and red foxes Vulpes vulpes , are functionally extinct (Thompson et al 2016).…”

Section: When the Environment Changes And The Pieces Do Notmentioning

confidence: 99%

An eco‐evolutionary perspective on the humpty‐dumpty effect and community restoration

Evans

Zímová

Giery

et al. 2022

Oikos

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In recent decades, anthropogenic and natural disturbances have increased in rate and intensity around the world, leaving few ecosystems unaffected. As a result of the interactions among these multiple disturbances, many biological communities now occur in a degraded state as collections of fragmented ecological pieces. Restoration strategies are traditionally driven by assumptions that a community or ecosystem can be restored back to a pre‐disturbance state through ecological remediation. Yet despite our best efforts, attempts to restore fragmented communities are often unsuccessful. One explanation, the humpty‐dumpty effect, suggests that once a community is disassembled, it is difficult to reassemble it even in the presence of all the original pieces. This hypothesis, while potentially useful, often fails to incorporate the multitude of other critical mechanisms that affect our abilities to put fragmented communities back together. Here, we extend the original humpty‐dumpty analogy to incorporate eco‐evolutionary changes that can hinder successful restoration. A systematic literature review uncovered few studies that have explicitly considered how the original humpty‐dumpty effect has affected restoration success in the 30 years since its inception. Using case studies, we demonstrate how the application of our extended eco‐evolutionary humpty‐dumpty framework may determine the success of restoration actions via ecological and evolutionary changes in fragments of communities. Lastly, given continued anthropogenic disturbances and projected climatic changes, we make five recommendations to facilitate more successful restoration efforts given our revised eco‐evolutionary humpty‐dumpty effects framework. These guidelines, combined with clearly defined management goals are aimed at both keeping ecological communities as intact as possible while ensuring that future ecosystem restorations might more successfully put the ecological community pieces back together.

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“…Moreover, snow cover duration is an important factor affecting species that change their coat color to white in winter, such as ptarmigan (Lagopus spp.) and mountain hare (Lepus timidus; Melin et al (2020); Zimova et al (2020)), or to access food resources (Espunyes et al, 2022). Finally, measuring the duration and intensity of summer heat waves, calculated from air sensors, is critical in order to assess the ability of plants and animals to cope with extreme heat events.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In-situ Temperature Stations Elucidate Species’ Phenological Responses to Climate in the Alps, but Meteorological and Snow Reanalysis Facilitates Broad Scale and Long-Term Studies

Laigle¹,

Carlson²,

Delestrade³

et al. 2022

Front. Earth Sci.

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Linking climate variability and change to the phenological response of species is particularly challenging in the context of mountainous terrain. In these environments, elevation and topography lead to a diversity of bioclimatic conditions at fine scales affecting species distribution and phenology. In order to quantify in situ climate conditions for mountain plants, the CREA (Research Center for Alpine Ecosystems) installed 82 temperature stations throughout the southwestern Alps, at different elevations and aspects. Dataloggers at each station provide local measurements of temperature at four heights (5 cm below the soil surface, at the soil surface, 30 cm above the soil surface, and 2 m above ground). Given the significant amount of effort required for station installation and maintenance, we tested whether meteorological data based on the S2M reanalysis could be used instead of station data. Comparison of the two datasets showed that some climate indices, including snow melt-out date and a heat wave index, can vary significantly according to data origin. More general indices such as daily temperature averages were more consistent across datasets, while threshold-based temperature indices showed somewhat lower agreement. Over a 12 year period, the phenological responses of four mountain tree species (ash (Fraxinus excelsior), spruce (Picea abies), hazel (Corylus avellana), birch (Betula pendula)), coal tits (Periparus ater) and common frogs (Rana temporaria) to climate variability were better explained, from both a statistical and ecological standpoint, by indices derived from field stations. Reanalysis data out-performed station data, however, for predicting larch (Larix decidua) budburst date. Overall, our study indicates that the choice of dataset for phenological monitoring ultimately depends on target bioclimatic variables and species, and also on the spatial and temporal scale of the study.

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Lack of phenological shift leads to increased camouflage mismatch in mountain hares

Cited by 21 publications

References 72 publications

Animal Coloration in the Anthropocene

Animal Coloration in the Anthropocene

An eco‐evolutionary perspective on the humpty‐dumpty effect and community restoration

In-situ Temperature Stations Elucidate Species’ Phenological Responses to Climate in the Alps, but Meteorological and Snow Reanalysis Facilitates Broad Scale and Long-Term Studies

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