Feeling the heat: Many landscapes will amplify temperatures during heatwaves
With climate change increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, there is an urgent need to understand how species experience and respond to these changes.
One key challenge is that animals do not experience temperature at the macro-scale. Instead, minor variations in landscape structure (microhabitats) can alter local temperatures (microclimates).
In a recent paper by Dr Esme Ashe-Jepson, she monitored microclimatic conditions in a calcareous grassland nature reserve in the UK, and investigated how microclimate temperatures changed during heatwaves. She found that microclimate temperatures were particularly amplified close to the ground, meaning that ground-dwelling animals are most at risk of being exposed to extreme temperatures. She also found that landscape structure could somewhat alter microclimatic conditions, and made suggestions to land managers to improve their ability to maintain cool refugia in their landscapes, such as allowing the vegetation to grow longer during the hottest summer months, and to prioritise the protection of north-facing slopes. Overall, she found that there are fewer and fewer cool refugia has temperatures rise, resulting in landscapes containing more heat traps and fewer areas of escape from the heat. Small and slow-moving animals may find it particularly challenging to escape the heat.
This paper highlights how microclimate performance changes during extreme weather events, and that many landscapes will amplify instead of mitigate the impacts of climate change.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.18.164843
Link: https://biogeography.pensoft.net/article/164843/list/1/
