How mammals on land respond to effects of climate change

What is it about?

Just like humans, other animals have been subjected to the adverse effects of climate change. Understanding how these animals respond to climate variations is fundamental for formulating and implementing appropriate conservation strategies. Accordingly, this review details how mammals that live on land, or ‘terrestrial mammals’, are impacted by climate change consequences like exposure to excess heat and limited water and resources.

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Photo by ALVENSIA ANGELA on Unsplash

Photo by ALVENSIA ANGELA on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The exacerbated negative effects of climate change have exposed terrestrial mammals to many stressors—some of them new, others older, yet more persistent. These stressors inevitably influence the endocrine and metabolic functions of such mammals in a manner that affects their survival. According to the authors of this review, multiple variables influence such functions, which in turn, determines fitness. Here, fitness refers to the survival and successful reproduction of mammals in the face of climate change crises like increasing temperatures, water scarcity, and unpredictability of obtaining food. The authors suggest that to weather such unpredictability, the mammals will engage in a heat balance through dynamic gain and loss. While heat gain is influenced by metabolic heat production, and natural processes like conduction, convection, and radiation, corresponding heat loss involves the same natural processes, as well as evaporation elicited by panting and sweating. Also, mammals generally exhibit a major drop in metabolic rate, or ‘hypometabolism’, as an adaptive response to stressors. This process is driven by complex endocrine signaling between the individual mammalian hypothalamus-pituitary axis and corresponding effector organs. Further, the authors note that hypometabolism manifests differently in different mammals—smaller mammals usually go into torpor or hibernation, whereas larger ones suffer decreased survival and reproduction, depending on the affected ecosystems they live in. Key takeaway Overall, this review establishes the importance of understanding endocrine-mediated metabolic changes in different mammals to predict the latter’s response to climate change and devise appropriate management measures.