Socially-mediated effects of climate change decrease survival of hibernating Alpine marmots

1. In the context of global change, an increasing challenge is to understand the interaction between weather variables and life histories. Species-specific life histories should condition the way climate influences population dynamics, particularly those that are associated with environmental constraints, such as lifestyles like hibernation and sociality. However, the influence of lifestyle in the response of organisms to climate change remains poorly understood. 2. Based on a 23-year longitudinal study of the Alpine marmot, we investigated how their lifestyle, characterized by a long hibernation and a high degree of sociality, interacts with the ongoing climate change to shape temporal variation in age-specific survival. 3. As generally reported in other hibernating species, we expected survival of Alpine marmots to be affected by the continuous lengthening of the growing season of plants more than by changes in winter conditions. We found, however, that Alpine marmots displayed lower ...