Dataset Information

High moon brightness and low ambient temperatures affect sloth predation by harpy eagles.

ABSTRACT: Background:Climate plays a key role in the life histories of tropical vertebrates. However, tropical forests are only weakly seasonal compared with temperate and boreal regions. For species with limited ability to control core body temperature, even mild climatic variation can determine major behavioural outcomes, such as foraging and predator avoidance. In tropical forests, sloths are the arboreal vertebrate attaining the greatest biomass density, but their capacity to regulate body temperature is limited, relying on behavioural adaptations to thermoregulate. Sloths are largely or strictly nocturnal, and depend on crypsis to avoid predation. The harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) is a sloth-specialist and exerts strong top-down control over its prey species. Yet the role of environmental variables on the regulation of predator-prey interactions between sloths and harpy eagles are unknown. The harpy eagle is considered Near Threatened. This motivated a comprehensive e?ort to reintroduce this species into parts of Mesoamerica. This e?ort incidentally enabled us to understand the prey profile of harpy eagles over multiple seasons. Methods:Our study was conducted between 2003 and 2009 at Soberanía National Park, Panamá. Telemetered harpy eagles were seen hunting and feeding on individual prey species. For each predation event, field assistants systematically recorded the species killed. We analysed the effects of climatic conditions and vegetation phenology on the prey species profile of harpy eagles using generalised linear mixed models. Results:Here we show that sloth predation by harpy eagles was negatively a?ected by nocturnal ambient light (i.e. bright moonshine) and positively a?ected by seasonally cool temperatures. We suggest that the first ensured low detectability conditions for sloths foraging at night and the second posed a thermally unsuitable climate that forced sloths to forage under riskier daylight. We showed that even moderate seasonal variation in temperature can influence the relationship between a keystone tropical forest predator and a dominant prey item. Therefore, predator-prey ecology in the tropics can be modulated by subtle changes in environmental conditions. The seasonal e?ects shown here suggest important demographic consequences for sloths, which are under top-down regulation from harpy eagle predation, perhaps limiting their geographic distribution at higher latitudes.

SUBMITTER: de Miranda EBP

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7456529 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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High moon brightness and low ambient temperatures affect sloth predation by harpy eagles.

de Miranda Everton B P EBP Kenup Caio F CF Campbell-Thompson Edwin E Vargas Felix H FH Muela Angel A Watson Richard R Peres Carlos A CA Downs Colleen T CT

PeerJ 20200827

<h4>Background</h4>Climate plays a key role in the life histories of tropical vertebrates. However, tropical forests are only weakly seasonal compared with temperate and boreal regions. For species with limited ability to control core body temperature, even mild climatic variation can determine major behavioural outcomes, such as foraging and predator avoidance. In tropical forests, sloths are the arboreal vertebrate attaining the greatest biomass density, but their capacity to regulate body tem ...[more]

PMID: 32913676

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Project description:BackgroundNon-optimal temperatures are associated with mortality risk, yet the heterogeneity of temperature-attributable mortality burden across subnational regions in a country was rarely investigated. We estimated the mortality burden related to non-optimal temperatures across all provinces in China in 2019.MethodsThe global daily temperature data were obtained from the ERA5 reanalysis dataset. The daily mortality data and exposure-response curves between daily temperature and mortality for 176 individual causes of death were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019 (GBD 2019). We estimated the population attributable fraction (PAF) based on the exposure-response curves, daily gridded temperature, and population. We calculated the cause- and province-specific mortality burden based on PAF and disease burden data from the GBD 2019.FindingsWe estimated that 593·9 (95% UI:498·8, 704·6) thousand deaths were attributable to non-optimal temperatures in China in 2019 (PAF=5·58% [4·93%, 6·28%]), with 580·8 (485·7, 690·1) thousand cold-related deaths and 13·9 (7·7, 23·2) thousand heat-related deaths. The majority of temperature-related deaths were from cardiovascular diseases (399·7 [322·8, 490·4] thousand) and chronic respiratory diseases (177·4 [141·4, 222·3] thousand). The mortality burdens were observed significantly spatial heterogeneity for both high and low temperatures. For instance, the age-standardized death rates (per 100 000) attributable to low temperature were higher in Western China, with the highest in Tibet (113·7 [82·0, 155·5]), while for high temperature, they were greater in Xinjiang (1·8 [0·7, 3·3]) and Central-Southern China such as Hainan (2·5 [0·9, 5·4]). We also observed considerable geographical variation in the temperature-related mortality burden by causes of death at provincial level.InterpretationA substantial mortality burden was attributable to non-optimal temperatures across China, and cold effects dominated the total mortality burden in all provinces. Both cold- and heat-related mortality burden showed significantly spatial variations across China.FundingNational Key Research and Development Program.

Dataset Information

High moon brightness and low ambient temperatures affect sloth predation by harpy eagles.

Publications

High moon brightness and low ambient temperatures affect sloth predation by harpy eagles.

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