Life history and habitat do not mediate temporal changes in body size due to climate warming in rodents.

ABSTRACT: Temporal changes in body size have been documented in a number of vertebrate species, with different contested drivers being suggested to explain these changes. Among these are climate warming, resource availability, competition, predation risk, human population density, island effects and others. Both life history traits (intrinsic factors such as lifespan and reproductive rate) and habitat (extrinsic factors such as vegetation type, latitude and elevation) are expected to mediate the existence of a significant temporal response of body size to climate warming but neither have been widely investigated. Using examples of rodents, we predicted that both life history traits and habitat might explain the probability of temporal response using two tests of this hypothesis. Firstly, taking adva

SUBMITTER: Nengovhela A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7520088 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature