The study, led by Gavia Lertzman-Lepofsky (University of Toronto), with Dr. Wendy Palen (Simon Fraser University) and Dr. Barry Sinervo (University of California-Santa Cruz) suggests rising summer temperatures, known to be harmful on their own, are also resulting in higher rates of dehydration for wet-skinned amphibians as they attempt to keep themselves cool.
The researchers collected data on environmental conditions in shaded and damp nooks and crannies at the edges of wetlands in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest to predict how suitable those environments will be for amphibians in the future. The study, published in the journal Global Change Biology, predicts that by the 2080s, habitats that were previously thought to be safe for amphibians, will either be too hot (wetland edges, 74% of the summer), or too dehydrating (land, 95% of the summer) for amphibians to inhabit.
These findings are significant because most previous research predicting the effects of climate change for amphibians has focused solely on temperature, ignoring an equally important physiological process for amphibians – evaporative water loss. By incorporating rates of water loss, the researchers found that previous studies may have dramatically underestimated the already dire predictions of climate change on amphibians.
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