Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Abstract
The Earth's surface temperature is rising, and precipitation patterns throughout the Earth are changing; the source of these shifts is likely anthropogenic in nature. Alterations in temperature and precipitation have obvious direct and indirect ef‐ fects on both plants and animals. Notably, changes in temperature and precipita‐ tion alone can have both advantageous and detrimental consequences depending on the species. Typically, production of offspring is timed to coincide with optimal food availability; thus, individuals of many species display annual rhythms of reproductive function. Because it requires substantial time to establish or re‐establish reproduc‐ tive function, individuals cannot depend on the arrival of seasonal food availability to begin breeding; thus, mechanisms have evolved in many plants and animals to monitor and respond to day length in order to anticipate seasonal changes in the environment. Over evolutionary time, there has been precise fine‐tuning of critical photoperiod and onset/offset of seasonal adaptations. Climate change has provoked changes in the availability of insects and plants which shifts the timing of optimal reproduction. However, adaptations to the stable photoperiod may be insufficiently plastic to allow a shift in the seasonal timing of bird and mammal breeding. Coupled with the effects of light pollution which prevents these species from determining day length, climate change presents extreme evolutionary pressure that can result in se‐ vere deleterious consequences for individual species reproduction and survival. This review describes the effects of climate change on plants and animals, defines photo‐ period and the physiological events it regulates, and addresses the consequences of global climate change and a stable photoperiod.
Digital Commons Citation
Walker II, William H.; Meléndez‐Fernández, Olga Hecmarie; Nelson, Randy J.; and Reiter, Russel J., "Global Climate Change and Invariable Photoperiods: A Mismatch That Jeopardizes Animal fitness" (2019). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 1838.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/1838
Source Citation
Walker, W. H., II, Meléndez‐Fernández, O. H., Nelson, R. J., & Reiter, R. J. (2019). Global climate change and invariable photoperiods: A mismatch that jeopardizes animal fitness. Ecology and Evolution, 9(17), 10044–10054. https://doi.org/10.1002/ece3.5537
Comments
© 2019 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
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.