Dr. Cesare Pacioni
Terrestrial Ecology Unit
Department of Biology
Ghent University
K.L. Ledeganckstraat 35
9000 Gent Belgium
E-mail: Cesare.Pacioni@UGent.be
Understanding and predicting how species respond to changing environmental conditions is important for addressing global change challenges such as climate change and biological invasions. Globally, one in six species may be at risk of extinction due to climate change, while invasions by introduced non-native species have become a major driver of biodiversity loss worldwide. However, policy responses and management strategies to mitigate these threats are complicated by substantial uncertainties in future scenarios of biodiversity redistribution under global change. For example, widely used phenomenological models that correlate contemporary species occurrence data with spatial environmental predictors to characterize species’ climatic tolerances often overestimate or underestimate the extent to which species’ ranges are likely to change over time. Moreover, predictions of areas at risk of invasion are further complicated by the fact that invasive species often colonize climates in their introduced range that differ from their native range.
Ultimately, the potential geographic range of species is determined by their physiological response to their environment, and understanding the mechanistic links between climate and distribution is increasingly recognized as a prerequisite for predicting future species distributions and implementing successful conservation strategies. However, the incorporation of ecophysiology into ecological forecasting has remained limited, at least in part because of real and perceived concerns about data availability and uncertainties about the precise physiological mechanisms that animals can use to cope with changing environments.
In this context, my research examines the physiological adaptations of passerine birds to changing environmental conditions, with a focus on avian thermoregulation. Among endotherms, birds may be particularly vulnerable to climate change due to their relatively small size and predominantly diurnal activity. In fact, studies have shown that a significant percentage of bird species currently experience maximum ambient temperatures above their thermal tolerance, and projections indicate that this number will increase under future climate change scenarios. In addition, unpredictable cold snaps have been found to hamper birds’ ability to forage effectively and feed their nestlings. By investigating the mechanisms that enable native and invasive birds to cope with fluctuating conditions, I aim to fill gaps in our knowledge of their responses, particularly in tropical and intraspecific contexts.
