dc.description.abstract | As global warming advances, there is a growing concern about the impact of extreme weather
events on ecosystems. In the Arctic, more frequent unseasonal warm spells and rain-on-
snow
events
in winter cause changes in snow-pack
properties, including ground icing. Such extreme weather events
are known to have severe effects across trophic levels, for instance, causing die-offs
of large herbivores.
However, the extent to which individuals and populations are able to buffer such events through behavioral
plasticity is poorly understood. Here, we analyze responses in space use to rain-on-
snow
and icing
events, and their fitness correlates, in wild reindeer in high-Arctic
Svalbard. Range displacement among
GPS-collared
females occurred mainly in icy winters to areas with less ice, lower over-winter
body mass
loss, lower mortality rate, and higher subsequent fecundity, than the departure area. Our study provides
rare empirical evidence that mammals may buffer negative effects of climate change and extreme weather
events by adjusting behavior in highly stochastic environments. Under global warming, behavioral buffering
may be important for the long-term
population persistence in mobile species with long generation
time and therefore limited ability for rapid evolutionary adaptation.
Arctic; climate; GPS; ice; ideal-free distribution; migration; movement; Rangifer tarandus platyrhynchus;
space use; Svalbard; Svalbard reindeer; time-to-event analysis. | nb_NO |