Hydroregulation – a missing piece of the climate change puzzle

对于生物体如何对温度和降雨的变化作出反应这一难题，迫切需要明确过程的方法。为了实现动物的这一目标，必须考虑体温和水分平衡的行为缓冲。关于体温调节我们知道的很多，但“水文调节”是气候变化预测拼图中缺失的一个重要部分。该项目将整合新的建模方法和经验方法，以了解温度调节、水文调节、活动以及最终分布和丰度之间的联系。它将根据对澳大利亚干旱地区爬行动物和无脊椎动物的长期活动观察来检验这些预测。

There is a great need for process-explicit approaches to the puzzle of how organisms will respond to changes in temperature and rainfall. To achieve this for animals, behavioural buffering of both body temperature and water balance must be accounted for. Much is known about thermoregulation, but 'hydroregulation' stands out as a major missing piece of the climate change forecasting puzzle. This project will integrate new modelling methods and empirical approaches to understand the connections between thermoregulation, hydroregulation, activity and, ultimately, distribution and abundance. It will test the predictions against long-term activity observations of reptiles and invertebrates from the Australian arid zone.