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Forest cover reduces thermally suitable habitats and affects responses to a warmer climate predicted in a high-elevation lizard

  • Physiological ecology - Original research
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Abstract

Warmer climates have affected animal distribution ranges, but how they may interact with vegetation patterns to affect habitat use, an important consideration for future wildlife management, has received little attention. Here, we use a biophysical model to investigate the potential thermal impact of vegetation pattern on the habitat quality of a high-elevation grassland lizard, Takydromus hsuehshanensis, and to predict the thermal suitability of vegetation for this species in a future warmer climate (assuming 3 °C air temperature increase). We assess the thermal quality of vegetation types in our study area (Taroko National Park in areas >1,800 m) using three ecologically relevant estimates of reptiles: body temperature (T b), maximum active time, and maximum digestive time. The results show that increasing forest canopy gradually cools the microclimates, hence decreasing these estimates. In the current landscape, sunny mountain-top grasslands are predicted to serve as high quality thermal habitat, whereas the dense forests that are dominant as a result of forest protection are too cold to provide suitable habitat. In simulated warmer climates, the thermal quality of dense forests increases slightly but remains inferior to that of grasslands. We note that the impact of warmer climates on this reptile will be greatly affected by future vegetation patterns, and we suggest that the current trend of upslope forest movement found in many other mountain systems could cause disadvantages to some heliothermic lizard species.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Endemic Species Research Institute for temperature data, Drs. Ping-Chun Lucy Hou and Kuang-Yang Lue for equipment, Hsu-Hong Lin, Ken-Hao Hsu, Yi-Huei Chen, Chun-Jui Chang, Ya- Chi Chiu, and Yi-Chun Cheng for field study, and Ruth Kearley, Stefanie Lohmann, and Porter laboratory members for constructive comments. We thank two anonymous reviewers for their instructive comments, which greatly improved this research. Shu-Ping Huang was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from National Science Council, Taiwan (NSC98-2917-I-564-168). National Vegetation Inventory and Mapping Program 2003–2008 was funded by Taiwan Forest Bureau.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, 250 N. Mills Street, Madison, WI, USA

    Shu-Ping Huang & Warren P. Porter

  2. Department of Life Sciences, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Shu-Ping Huang & Ming-Chung Tu

  3. School of Forestry and Resource Conservation, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan

    Chyi-Rong Chiou

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  1. Shu-Ping Huang
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  2. Warren P. Porter
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  3. Ming-Chung Tu
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  4. Chyi-Rong Chiou
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Correspondence to Shu-Ping Huang.

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Communicated by Lin Schwarzkopf.

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Huang, SP., Porter, W.P., Tu, MC. et al. Forest cover reduces thermally suitable habitats and affects responses to a warmer climate predicted in a high-elevation lizard. Oecologia 175, 25–35 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-2882-1

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