Hot Birds Research Project
The roles of temperature and humidity as drivers of adaptive thermoregulation in southern African birds
The physiological performance of an endothermic animal is dependent on its body temperature. The energy and water balance of that same animal are dependent on the strategies employed to maintain a desired body temperature. Understanding how geographically fluctuating environmental variables such as ambient air temperature and humidity influence thermoregulatory capabilities of animals may be important, especially in the face of predicted global shifts in climatic conditions. However, current literature regarding avian thermoregulation to increasing air temperature is primarily restricted to species inhabiting hot arid regions only. As a result, our understanding of whether species residing in non-arid habitats are less, equally or possibly even more physiologically vulnerable to potential future increases in air temperature, remains limited. During his PhD Marc Freeman aims to improve our understanding in this area through quantifying variation in avian evaporative cooling efficiency, heat tolerance and assessing the effect of increasing humidity in phylogenetically diverse avian taxa. The project will be conducted for multiple species within three climatically contrasting broad biome types (i.e. desert, montane grassland and thicket as well as subtropical forests) representing a gradient of maximum air temperatures.
