Climate change threatens the future of rain forest ringtail possums by 2050
de la Fuente Pinero, Alejandro, and Williams, Stephen E. (2023) Climate change threatens the future of rain forest ringtail possums by 2050. Diversity and Distributions, 29 (1). pp. 173-183.
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Abstract
Aim: The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather escalate the pressure of global warming on biodiversity. Globally, synergistic effects of multiple components of climate change have driven local extinctions and community collapses, raising concern about the irreversible deterioration of ecosystems. Here, we disentangle the pressure of increasing warming and frequency of extreme heatwaves on the population dynamics of tropical ringtail possums (family: Pseudocheiridae).
Location: The Australian Wet Tropics World Heritage Area.
Method: Ringtail possums' population dynamics were estimated between 1992 and 2021 using a hierarchical population model that explicitly described the state process and accounted for imperfect detection. Under our model, we propagated the estimated mechanisms governing the system by forecasting ringtails' population dynamics between 2022 and 2050. Derived from this process, we calculated the probability of absolute and quasi-extinction using different population viability thresholds.
Results: We find a strong negative effect of climate change on population dynamics, particularly extreme heatwaves, resulting in a rapid and severe decline in ringtails' population size in the last three decades.
Main Conclusions: Forecasted increases in temperature and heatwaves threaten the collapse of rain forest ringtail possums by 2050, with populations falling below viability thresholds within three decades.
| Item ID: | 78583 |
|---|---|
| Item Type: | Article (Research - C1) |
| ISSN: | 1472-4642 |
| Keywords: | Australian wet tropics, climate change, elevational shift, heatwaves, N-mixture model, population declines, Pseudocheiridae |
| Copyright Information: | This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2022 The Authors. Diversity and Distributions published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. |
| Funders: | James Cook University (JCU) |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Oct 2023 00:09 |
| FoR Codes: | 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3103 Ecology > 310307 Population ecology @ 50% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4101 Climate change impacts and adaptation > 410102 Ecological impacts of climate change and ecological adaptation @ 50% |
| SEO Codes: | 19 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL HAZARDS > 1905 Understanding climate change > 190504 Effects of climate change on Australia (excl. social impacts) @ 70% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 30% |
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