In the face of climate change there is an urgent need to understand how animal performance is affected by environmental conditions. Biophysical models that use principles of heat and mass transfer can be used to explore how an animal's morphology, physiology, and behavior interact with its environment in terms of energy, mass and water balances to affect fitness and performance. We used Niche Mapper™ (NM) to build a vervet monkey (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) biophysical model and tested the model's ability to predict core body temperature (Tb) variation and thermal stress against Tb and behavioral data collected from wild vervets in South Africa. The mean observed Tb in both males and females was within 0.5 °C of NM's predicted Tbs for 91% of hours over the five-year study period. This is the first time that NM's Tb predictions have been validated against field data from a wild endotherm. Overall, these results provide confidence that NM can accurately predict thermal stress and can be used to provide insight into the thermoregulatory consequences of morphological (e.g., body size, shape, fur depth), physiological (e.g. Tb plasticity) and behavioral (e.g., huddling, resting, shade seeking) adaptations. Such an approach allows users to test hypotheses about how animals adapt to thermoregulatory challenges and make informed predictions about potential responses to environmental change such as climate change or habitat conversion. Importantly, NM's animal submodel is a general model that can be adapted to other species, requiring only basic information on an animal's morphology, physiology and behavior.

中文翻译：

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现场数据证实了生物物理模型预测野生灵长类动物体温的能力

面对气候变化，迫切需要了解环境条件如何影响动物的表现。使用传热传质原理的生物物理模型可用于探索动物的形态学、生理学和行为如何在能量、质量和水平衡方面与其环境相互作用，从而影响健康和表现。我们使用 Niche Mapper™ (NM) 构建了一个黑尾猴 (Chlorocebus pygerythrus) 生物物理模型，并测试了该模型预测核心体温 (Tb) 变化和针对 Tb 的热应激的能力，以及从南非野生长尾黑尾猴收集的行为数据。在五年的研究期间，在 91% 的时间里，男性和女性的平均观察到的 Tb 与 NM 预测的 Tb 相差在 0.5 °C 以内。这是NM'第一次 s Tb 预测已根据野生吸热的现场数据得到验证。总体而言，这些结果提供了 NM 可以准确预测热应激的信心，并可用于深入了解形态（例如，体型、形状、毛皮深度）、生理（例如 Tb 可塑性）和行为（例如，蜷缩）的体温调节结果。 、休息、寻阴）适应。这种方法允许用户测试关于动物如何适应体温调节挑战的假设，并对环境变化（如气候变化或栖息地转换）的潜在反应做出明智的预测。重要的是，NM 的动物子模型是一个通用模型，可以适应其他物种，只需要有关动物形态、生理和行为的基本信息。