title: In situ adaptive response to climate and habitat quality variation: spatial and temporal variation in European badger (Meles meles) body weight.
abstract: Variation in climatic and habitat conditions can affect populations through a variety of mechanisms, and these relationships can act at different temporal and spatial scales. Using post-mortem badger body weight records from 15 878 individuals captured across the Republic of Ireland (7224 setts across ca. 15 000 km(2) ; 2009-2012), we employed a hierarchical multilevel mixed model to evaluate the effects of climate (rainfall and temperature) and habitat quality (landscape suitability), while controlling for local abundance (unique badgers caught/sett/year). Body weight was affected strongly by temperature across a number of temporal scales (preceding month or season), with badgers being heavier if preceding temperatures (particularly during winter/spring) were warmer than the long-term seasonal mean. There was less support for rainfall across different temporal scales, although badgers did exhibit heavier weights when greater rainfall occurred one or 2 months prior to capture. Badgers were also heavier in areas with higher landscape habitat quality, modulated by the number of individuals captured per sett, consistent with density-dependent effects reducing weights. Overall, the mean badger body weight of culled individuals rose during the study period (2009-2012), more so for males than for females. With predicted increases in temperature, and rainfall, augmented by ongoing agricultural land conversion in this region, we project heavier individual badger body weights in the future. Increased body weight has been associated with higher fecundity, recruitment and survival rates in badgers, due to improved food availability and energetic budgets. We thus predict that climate change could increase the badger population across the Republic of Ireland. Nevertheless, we emphasize that, locally, populations could still be vulnerable to extreme weather variability coupled with detrimental agricultural practice, including population management.
authors.affiliation: Veterinary Sciences Division, Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute, Stoney Road, Belfast, County Antrim, BT4 3SD, UK.|Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology and Risk Analysis, School of Veterinary Medicine, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.
authors.forename: Andrew W
authors.initials: AW
authors.lastname: Byrne
authors.affiliation: Irish Equine Centre, Johnstown, Kildare, Ireland.
authors.forename: Ursula
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Fogarty
authors.affiliation: Centre for Veterinary Epidemiology and Risk Analysis, School of Veterinary Medicine, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland.|Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Agriculture House, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: O'Keeffe
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, The Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Tubney House, Tubney, Abingdon, OX13 5QL, UK.
authors.forename: Chris
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Newman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001835:Body Weight; D002980:Climate; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D017753:Ecosystem; D005260:Female; D007494:Ireland; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D045969:Mustelidae / Q000502:physiology*; D011157:Population Dynamics
keywords: Body mass; climate change; farming practice; habitat suitability; hierarchical modelling; scale dependencies; weather variability