Climate change and population persistence in a hibernating marsupial

Climate change has physiological consequences on organisms, ecosystems, and human societies, surpassing the pace of organismal adaptation. Hibernating mammals are particularly vulnerable as winter survival is determined by short-term physiological changes triggered by temperature. In these animals, winter temperatures cannot surpass certain threshold, above which hibernators arouse from torpor, increasing several fold their energy needs when food is unavailable. Here, we parameterized a numerical model predicting energy consumption in heterothermic species, and modeled winter survival at different climate change scenarios. As a model species, we used the arboreal marsupial monito del monte (genus Dromiciops) which is recognized as one of the few South America hibernators. We modeled four climate change scenarios (from optimistic to pessimistic), based on IPCC projections, predicting that northern and coastal populations (Dromiciops bozinovici) will decline because the minimum number of ..., During hibernation, animals reduce their metabolic rate up to 95%, and do not ingest food, thus relying completely on accumulated fat. An hibernating Dromiciops consumes about 0.09 g of fat per day, thus it would need to accumulate about 13.5g of fat to survive 150 days of hibernation. Then, it is possible to estimate winter survival (in days) by measuring the amount of body fat, and knowing the rate of energy consumption in hibernation, assuming that 100% of nutritional needs are covered by body fat. In this study, we calculated how much days would survive an animal that is exposed to a small increase in winter temperatures and transformed this in a survival function by a numerical model. Our model has the following assumptions:
1.     Cold is the main trigger of hibernation.
2.     Animals rely 100% on body fat during hibernation.
3.     Seasonal food provision will not change with warming.
4.     Animals do not ingest food, at least during the four months of deep hibernation (May to ..., , # Data from: Climate change and population persistence in a hibernating marsupial

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.15dv41p4d](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.15dv41p4d)

This repository contains supplementary information related to the data model parameters used and R code to reproduce our models.

## Description of the data and file structure

This repository contains two files: (1) a CSV file with the parameter values used to produce the models presented in the paper, and (2) a R script with the code needed to reproduce the model. The readers may use those files to change model parameters to test different models by varying initial conditions as an exploratory exercise.

### Parameter description

L0 = the intercept of the torpor incidence logistic equation (see equation 3 in Methods)

L = the slope of the torpor incidence logistic equation

T0 = intercept of the MR/TA curve at the \"torpor thermoregulation zone\" (in kJg-1d-1)

T1 = slope of the MR/TA curve at the \"torpor thermoregulation...