Imagine a tropical forest and you might conjure up tall trees hung with vines, brightly colored birds, howling monkeys, and … rain.
Imagine a tropical forest and you might conjure up tall trees hung with vines, brightly colored birds, howling monkeys, and … rain. Indeed, precipitation patterns, along with temperature, dictate where tropical forests are distributed around the world, but surprisingly, scientists know very little about the direct effects of rainfall on animals.
A new conceptual framework, developed by University of Illinois and Kansas State University researchers, calls for the scientific community to formally consider the role of precipitation in an organism’s ecological niche – the set of biological and environmental factors that optimize life for a given critter.
“We understand exactly how most animals respond to temperature, but the same is not true for rain,” says Alice Boyle, associate professor in the Division of Biology at Kansas State and lead author on the Trends in Ecology & Evolution article. “When animal biologists see rainfall effects in their studies, they assume it must be about how plants are responding to rainfall and how that affects the food supply for the organisms they’re studying. But there can be direct physiological consequences of rain related to feeding behavior, predation, pathogens, and more. There's a lot more going on than food supply.”
Read more at University Of Illinois College Of Agricultural, Consumer And Environmental Sciences
Photo: Male Violaceous Trogon in a rainstorm in Costa Rica. Photo by Cristian Bonilla Poveda
