Hydrothermal physiology and climate vulnerability in amphibians

Abstract

Concerns over the consequences of global climate change for biodiversity have spurred a renewed interest in organismal thermal physiology. However, temperature is only one of many environmental axes poised to change in the future. In particular, hydrologic regimes are also expected to shift concurrently with temperature in many regions, yet our understanding of how thermal and hydration physiology jointly affect performance and fitness is still limited for most taxonomic groups. Here, we investigated the relationship between functional performance, hydration state and temperature in three ecologically distinct amphibians, and compare how temperature and water loss can concurrently limit activity under current climate conditions. We found that performance was maintained across a broad range of hydration states in all three species, but then declines abruptly after a threshold of 20–30% mass loss. This rapid performance decline was accelerated when individuals were exposed to warmer temperatures. Combining our empirical hydrothermal performance curves with species-specific biophysical models, we estimated that dehydration can increase restrictions on species' activity by up to 60% compared to restriction by temperature alone. These results illustrate the importance of integrating species' hydration physiology into forecasts of climate vulnerability, as omitting this axis may significantly underestimate the effects of future climate change on Earth's biological diversity.