Climate-mediated shifts in temperature fluctuations promote extinction risk

TL;DR

This study demonstrates that climate-driven changes in temperature fluctuations will lead to complex regional impacts on animal populations, universally increasing extinction risk across diverse ectotherm species by the end of the 21st century.

Contribution

It introduces a novel integrative approach combining climate model analyses with biological performance models to predict extinction risks from temperature fluctuation changes.

Findings

Regional differences in temperature increase patterns

Complex changes in population stability and abundance

Universal rise in extinction risk for ectotherms

Abstract

Climate-mediated changes in the spatiotemporal distribution of thermal stress can destabilize animal populations and promote extinction risk. Using quantile, spectral, and wavelet analyses of temperature projections from the latest generation of earth system models, we show that significant regional differences are expected to arise in the way that temperatures will increase over time. When integrated into empirically-parameterized mathematical models that simulate the dynamical and cumulative effects of thermal stress on the performance of 38 global ectotherm species, the projected spatiotemporal changes in temperature fluctuations are expected to give rise to complex regional changes in population abundance and stability over the course of the 21st century. However, despite their idiosyncratic effects on stability, projected temperatures universally increase extinction risk. These results show that population changes under future climate conditions may be more extensive and complex than the current literature suggests based on the statistical relationship between biological performance and average temperature.