Crossing regimes of temperature dependence in animal movement

Abstract

A pressing challenge in ecology is to understand the effects of changing global temperatures on food web structure and dynamics. The stability of these complex ecological networks largely depends on how predator-prey interactions may respond to temperature changes. Because predators and prey rely on their velocities to catch food or avoid being eaten, understanding how temperatures may affect animal movement is central to this quest. Despite our efforts, we still lack a mechanistic understanding of how the effect of temperature on metabolic processes scales up to animal movement and beyond. Here, we merge a biomechanical approach, the Metabolic Theory of Ecology and empirical data to show that animal movement displays multiple regimes of temperature dependence. We also show that crossing these regimes has important consequences for population dynamics and stability, which depend on the parameters controlling predator-prey interactions. We argue that this dependence upon interaction parameters may help explain why experimental work on the temperature dependence of interaction strengths has so far yielded conflicting results. More importantly, these changes in the temperature dependence of animal movement can have consequences that go well beyond ecological interactions and affect, for example, animal communication, mating, sensory detection, and any behavioral modality dependent on the movement of limbs. Finally, by not taking into account the changes in temperature dependence reported here we might not be able to properly forecast the impact of global warming on ecological processes and propose appropriate mitigation action when needed.

A spatially varying stochastic differential equation model for animal movement

“…Studying the movement of animals allows scientists to address fundamental questions in ecology and epidemiology. It can be used to understand how animals are impacted by their environment; for example Gibert, Chelini, Rosenthal and DeLong (2016) studied the impact of temperature on animal movement to understand potential impacts of climate change and Watkins and Rose (2013) studied the impact of novel environments on small fish in a simulation-based analysis. Animal movement can give insight into the impact of external stimuli, as studied by Dodge, Bohrer, Weinzierl, Davidson, Kays, Douglas, Cruz, Han, Brandes and Wikelski (2013) and Thiebault and Tremblay (2013).…”

The combined effects of reactant kinetics and enzyme stability explain the temperature dependence of metabolic rates

“…Second, the activation energy is a constant in the standard Arrhenius model, yet activation energy can vary across biologically relevant temperatures (Gibert, Chelini, Rosenthal, & DeLong, ; Knies & Kingsolver, ; Pawar, Dell, Savage, & Knies, ; Schulte, ). Such empirical observations suggest that even over temperature ranges where the Arrhenius equation is thought to apply, it may not be sufficiently nuanced to enable prediction of metabolic responses to temperature under warmer and more variable climates (Gibert et al., ; Pawar et al., ).…”

Linking animal movement and remote sensing – mapping resource suitability from a remote sensing perspective

“…; Gibert et al. ) and optical remote sensing has become a popular tool to achieve this. It provides spatially and temporally explicit information on landscape dynamics (Pereira et al.…”