Part of the work made by the CAVEheAT team and their collaborators has recently come to light in two scientific papers:
In the first one, published in Animal Conservation, we demonstrate that in the process of adaptation to the highly stable and homogeneous deep subterranean environment, beetle species have lost the capacity to cope with heat stress via thermal acclimation, in contrast with species living outside the caves. Such lack of physiological plasticity, together with the low dispersal ability to colonize new sites when conditions turn unfavourable, poses a high risk for subterranean species in a global warming context. Beyond the direct conservation implications for the target species, our study exemplifies why physiology needs to be considered in assessments of vulnerability to climate change, especially for species with poor dispersal capacities.
In another article published in Conservation Physiology (free access), we go one step beyond classic survival experiments and demonstrate that the metabolic functions of some cave species are altered at quite low temperatures (20°C), under which they show a high survival in the laboratory. Such physiological alterations could have negative consequences on the reproduction and survival of the species in the long term. This study indicates that the thermal sensitivity of subterranean fauna could be higher than previously thought considering lethal thermal limits and again, stress the potential of physiological information to guide vulnerability assessments and conservation strategies.
Full citations:
Pallarés, S., Colado, R., Botella‐Cruz, M., Montes, A., Balart‐García, P., Bilton, D. T., Millán, A., Ribera, I. & Sánchez‐Fernández, D. (In press). Loss of heat acclimation capacity could leave subterranean specialists highly sensitive to climate change. Animal Conservation.
Pallarés, S., Sanchez-Hernandez, J. C., Colado, R., Balart-García, P., Comas, J., & Sánchez-Fernández, D. (2020). Beyond survival experiments: using biomarkers of oxidative stress and neurotoxicity to assess vulnerability of subterranean fauna to climate change. Conservation Physiology, 8(1), coaa067
Comments