Geographic and taxonomic variation in adaptive capacity among mountain-dwelling small mammals: Implications for conservation status and actions

Beever, Erik A.; Wilkening, Jennifer L.; Billman, Peter D.; Thurman, Lindsey L.; Ernest, Kristina A.; Wright, David H.; Gill, A. M.; Craighead, April; Helmstetter, Nolan A.; Svancara, Leona K.; Camp, Meghan J.; Bhattacharyya, Sabuj; Fitzgerald, Jedediah; Hirose, Jocelyn M.R.; Westover, Marie L.; Gerraty, Francis D.; Klingler, Kelly B.; Schmidt, Danielle; Ryals, Dylan; Brown, Richard N.; Clark, Steven L.; Clayton, Neil; Collins, Gail H.; Cutting, Kyle A.; Doak, Daniel F.; Epps, Clinton W.; Foley, Janet E.; French, Johnnie H.; Hayes, Charles L.; Mills, Zachary A.; Moyer‐Horner, Lucas; Nichols, Lyle B.; Orlofsky, Kate B.; Peacock, Mary M.; Penzel, Nicholas C.; Peterson, Johnny W.; Ramsay, Nathan G.; Rickman, Tom H.; Robinson, Megan M.; Robison, Hillary L.; Rowe, Karen M. C.; Rowe, Kevin C.; Russello, Michael A.; Smith, Adam B.; Stewart, Joseph A. E.; Thompson, Will; Thorne, James H.; Waterhouse, Matthew D.; Weber, Shana; Wilson, Kenneth C.

doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2023.109942

Cited by 6 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…The impending loss of global biodiversity underscores the need to evaluate species' vulnerabilities to further shifts in climate, overexploitation, invasive species, and land-use patterns (Dıáz et al, 2019). Species' exposure and adaptive capacities are now recognized to vary widely across spatial scales (Beever et al, 2023) but given that ecological relationships are notoriously variable over multiple spatial and temporal dimensions, understanding patterns in new places, time periods, and under no-analog conditions can be difficult. However, there are growing opportunities to now capitalize on "big-data" systems that span many disciplines to better evaluate the importance of scale.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although temperate mountain regions exhibit high seasonality throughout the year, pikas do not hibernate, which can leave them vulnerable to both winter conditions, such as low snowpack, and summer conditions. Due to numerous life-history characteristics, pikas appear to have a comparatively lower adaptative capacity in the face of climate change than many other montane mammals in western North America, making them an ideal model organism for testing climate-responsiveness theory and questions (Beever et al, 2023).…”

Section: Model Organismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatio-temporal variability in the strength, directionality, and relative importance of climate on occupancy and population densities in a philopatric mammal, the American pika (Ochotona princeps)

et al. 2023

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Species distribution models (SDMs) have been widely employed to evaluate species–environment relationships. However, when extrapolated over broad spatial scales or through time, these models decline in their predictive ability due to variation in how species respond to their environment. Many models assume species–environment relationships remain constant over space and time, hindering their ability to accurately forecast distributions. Therefore, there is growing recognition that models could be improved by accounting for spatio-temporal nonstationarity – a phenomenon wherein the factors governing ecological processes change over space or time. Here, we investigated nonstationarity in American pika (Ochotona princeps) relationships with climatic variables in the Rocky Mountains (USA). We first compared broad-scale differences in pika–climate patterns for occupancy and population density across the Southern, Central, and Northern Rockies. Next, we investigated within-ecoregion variation across four mountain ranges nested within the Northern Rockies. Lastly, we tested whether species–climate relationships changed over time within the Central Rockies ecoregion. Across all analyses, we found varying levels of nonstationarity among the climate metrics for both occupancy and density. Although we found general congruence in temperature metrics, which consistently had negative coefficients, and moisture metrics (e.g., relative humidity), which had positive coefficients, nonstationarity was greatest for summer and winter precipitation over both space and time. These results suggest that interpretations from one ecoregion should not be applied to other regions universally – especially when using precipitation metrics. The within-ecoregion analysis found much greater variation in the strength-of-relationship coefficients among the four mountain ranges, relative to the inter-regional analysis, possibly attributable to smaller sample sizes per mountain range. Lastly, the importance of several variables shifted through time from significant to insignificant in the temporal analysis. Our results collectively reveal the overall complexity underlying species–environment relationships. With rapidly shifting conditions globally, this work adds to the growing body of literature highlighting how issues of spatio-temporal nonstationarity can limit the accuracy, transferability, and reliability of models and that interpretations will likely be most robust at local to regional scales. Diagnosing, describing, and incorporating nonstationarity of species–climate relationships into models over space and time could serve as a pivotal step in creating more informative models.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Organismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-temporal variability in the strength, directionality, and relative importance of climate on occupancy and population densities in a philopatric mammal, the American pika (Ochotona princeps)

et al. 2023

Self Cite

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“…Up to now, several studies have investigated the vulnerability of species to climate change on global or continental scales [11,[15][16][17][18][19]. However, few have conducted them on a national level for surveillance purposes [20][21][22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing Surveillance of Wildlife Diseases by Determining Mammal Species Vulnerability to Climate Change

Wijburg,

Maas,

Sprong

et al. 2023

Transboundary and Emerging Diseases

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Climate change is one of the drivers of wildlife-borne disease emergence, as it can affect species abundance and fitness, host immunocompetence, and interactions with pathogens. To detect emerging wildlife-borne diseases, countries may implement general wildlife-disease surveillance systems. Such surveillance exists in the Netherlands. However, it is unclear how well it covers host species vulnerable to climate change and consequently disease emergence in these species. Therefore, we performed a trait-based vulnerability assessment (TVA) to quantify species vulnerability to climate change for 59 Dutch terrestrial mammals. Species’ vulnerability was estimated based on the magnitude of climatic change within the species’ distribution (exposure), the species’ potential to persist in situ (sensitivity), and the species’ ability to adjust (adaptive capacity). Using these vulnerability categories, we identified priority species at risk for disease emergence due to climate change. Subsequently, we assessed the frequency of occurrence of these priority species compared to other mammal species examined in general wildlife disease surveillance during 2008–2022. We identified 25% of the mammal species to be highly exposed, 24% to be highly sensitive, and 22% to have a low adaptive capacity. The whiskered myotis and the garden dormouse were highly vulnerable (i.e., highly exposed, highly sensitive, and low adaptive capacity), but they are rare in the Netherlands. The Western barbastelle, the pond bat, and the Daubenton’s myotis were potential adapters (highly exposed, highly sensitive, and high adaptive capacity). Species vulnerable to climate change were relatively poorly represented in current general surveillance. Our research shows a comprehensive approach that considers both exposures to climate change and ecological factors to assess vulnerability. TVAs, as presented in this study, can easily be adapted to include extra drivers and species, and we would therefore recommend surveillance institutes to consider integrating these types of assessments for evaluating and improving surveillance for wildlife-borne disease emergence.

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Putative climate adaptation in American pikas (Ochotona princeps) is associated with copy number variation across environmental gradients

Sjodin,

Schmidt,

Galbreath

et al. 2024

Sci Rep

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Improved understanding of the genetic basis of adaptation to climate change is necessary for maintaining global biodiversity moving forward. Studies to date have largely focused on sequence variation, yet there is growing evidence that suggests that changes in genome structure may be an even more significant source of adaptive potential. The American pika (Ochotona princeps) is an alpine specialist that shows some evidence of adaptation to climate along elevational gradients, but previous work has been limited to single nucleotide polymorphism based analyses within a fraction of the species range. Here, we investigated the role of copy number variation underlying patterns of local adaptation in the American pika using genome-wide data previously collected across the entire species range. We identified 37–193 putative copy number variants (CNVs) associated with environmental variation (temperature, precipitation, solar radiation) within each of the six major American pika lineages, with patterns of divergence largely following elevational and latitudinal gradients. Genes associated (n = 158) with independent annotations across lineages, variables, and/or CNVs had functions related to mitochondrial structure/function, immune response, hypoxia, olfaction, and DNA repair. Some of these genes have been previously linked to putative high elevation and/or climate adaptation in other species, suggesting they may serve as important targets in future studies.

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Geographic and taxonomic variation in adaptive capacity among mountain-dwelling small mammals: Implications for conservation status and actions

Cited by 6 publications

References 56 publications

Spatio-temporal variability in the strength, directionality, and relative importance of climate on occupancy and population densities in a philopatric mammal, the American pika (Ochotona princeps)

Spatio-temporal variability in the strength, directionality, and relative importance of climate on occupancy and population densities in a philopatric mammal, the American pika (Ochotona princeps)

Assessing Surveillance of Wildlife Diseases by Determining Mammal Species Vulnerability to Climate Change

Putative climate adaptation in American pikas (Ochotona princeps) is associated with copy number variation across environmental gradients

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