Does metabolism constrain bird and mammal ranges and predict shifts in response to climate change?

ABSTRACT: Mechanistic approaches for predicting the ranges of endotherms are needed to forecast their responses to environmental change. We test whether physiological constraints on maximum metabolic rate and the factor by which endotherms can elevate their metabolism (metabolic expansibility) influence cold range limits for mammal and bird species. We examine metabolic expansibility at the cold range boundary (ME_CRB) and whether species' traits can predict variability in ME_CRB and then use ME_CRB as an initial approach to project range shifts for 210 mammal and 61 bird species. We find evidence for metabolic constraints: the distributions of metabolic expansibility at the cold range boundary peak at similar values for birds (2.7) and mammals (3.2). The right skewed d

SUBMITTER: Buckley LB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6308872 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature