Abstract
Although storms provide an extreme environmental challenge to organisms and are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change, there are no quantitative observations on the behaviour and physiology of animals during natural disasters. We provide the first data on activity and thermal biology of a free-ranging, arboreal mammal during a storm with heavy rain and category 1 cyclone wind speeds. We studied a population of sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps), a species vulnerable to bad weather due to their small body size and mode of locomotion, in a subtropical habitat during spring when storms are common. Although torpor is generally rare in this species, sugar gliders remained inactive or reduced foraging times during the storm and further minimized energy demands by entering deep torpor. All animals survived the storm and reverted to normal foraging activity during the following night(s). It thus appears that heterothermic mammals have a crucial adaptive advantage over homeothermic species as they can outlast challenging weather events, such as storms and floods, by reducing metabolism and thus energetic needs.
Highlights
Storms provide an extreme environmental challenge to organisms and are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change, there are no quantitative observations on the behaviour and physiology of animals during natural disasters
We studied a population of Australian sugar gliders (Petaurus breviceps, ~130 g) inhabiting a coastal, subtropical habitat during spring, when the likelihood of storms is high
Our data show that sugar gliders reduced foraging and increased torpor use, depth and duration during a severe subtropical storm
Summary
Storms provide an extreme environmental challenge to organisms and are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity due to climate change, there are no quantitative observations on the behaviour and physiology of animals during natural disasters. Recent studies have suggested that torpor use in heterothermic mammals, which is known as an effective adaptation of animals to survive seasonal food shortages and bad weather[6], may be of crucial importance to deal with unpredictable challenging conditions, such as unseasonal cold spells or famines[7,8,9,10]. Other studies conducted on this species in a cool-temperate region observed torpor only occasionally when extremely cold and wet conditions substantially elevated their energy demands[15,16]. This small arboreal marsupial appears to be vulnerable to storms since its mode of locomotion (gliding) is impeded by high wind speed. We hypothesized that sugar gliders would limit foraging and enter torpor as a survival strategy during storms with high rainfall and wind
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