Mismatch in reindeer resilience to past and future warming signals ongoing declines.

ABSTRACT: Rangifer tarandus (caribou or reindeer) survived periods of abrupt climatic warming during the last deglaciation but are currently in global decline. Using process-explicit models of likely climate-human-Rangifer interactions and inferences of demographic change from radiocarbon-dated fossils and ancient DNA, we reconstruct and decipher 21,000 years of Rangifer population dynamics. These high-resolution population reconstructions pinpoint ecological characteristics and life-history traits that most likely enabled Rangifer to survive rapid warming events following the Last Glacial Maximum. Projecting these process-driven models into the future reveals that these attributes are unlikely to buffer Rangifer against wide-scale population declines from expected

SUBMITTER: Canteri E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12346271 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature