What Is a Mild Winter? Regional Differences in Within-Species Responses to Climate Change

Climate change is known to affect ecosystems globally, but our knowledge of its impact on large and widespread mammals, and possibly population-specific responses is still sparse. We investigated large-scale and long-term effects of climate change on local population dynamics using the wild boar (Su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2015-07, Vol.10 (7), p.e0132178-e0132178
Main Authors: Vetter, Sebastian G, Ruf, Thomas, Bieber, Claudia, Arnold, Walter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Availability
Beech
Biology
Body Weight - physiology
Climate
Climate Change
Climate effects
Cold effects
Cold winters
Demographics
Ecology
Ecosystem
Ecosystem biology
Ecosystems
Environmental changes
Europe
Evolution
Fagus - physiology
Female
Food
Food availability
Food resources
Geography
Global temperature changes
Hogs
Local climates
Local population
Long-term effects
Male
Mild winters
Nuts
Physiology
Population density
Population Dynamics
Population Growth
Precipitation
Regional differences
Seasons
Species
Studies
Sus scrofa
Sus scrofa - physiology
Temperature
Trends
Veterinary medicine
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Summary:Climate change is known to affect ecosystems globally, but our knowledge of its impact on large and widespread mammals, and possibly population-specific responses is still sparse. We investigated large-scale and long-term effects of climate change on local population dynamics using the wild boar (Sus scrofa L.) as a model species. Our results show that population increases across Europe are strongly associated with increasingly mild winters, yet with region-specific threshold temperatures for the onset of exponential growth. Additionally, we found that abundant availability of critical food resources, e.g. beech nuts, can outweigh the negative effects of cold winters on population growth of wild boar. Availability of beech nuts is highly variable and highest in years of beech mast which increased in frequency since 1980, according to our data. We conclude that climate change drives population growth of wild boar directly by relaxing the negative effect of cold winters on survival and reproduction, and indirectly by increasing food availability. However, region-specific responses need to be considered in order to fully understand a species' demographic response to climate change.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0132178