Patrice Pottier
banner
patricepottier.bsky.social
Patrice Pottier
@patricepottier.bsky.social
Postdoc at ANU and UNSW; @SORTEE board member
Global change biology 🌍🌡️🏭, ecophysiology, evidence synthesis, open science 🔓
I love all kinds of critters 🐠🦎🐸🪲🐝🦑🦈🪸
Opinions my own; he/him
Thank you for sharing!
March 28, 2025 at 11:25 AM
Sorry, one of the images was not uploaded properly.

Here's the figure for the validation approach
🧵(6/27)
March 7, 2025 at 12:27 AM
Please also check out @nicholaswu.bsky.social's fantastic post about this study:

bsky.app/profile/nich...

He's an incredible graphic designer and scientist, and many of the illustrations in this thread/paper are from him.
New paper in @nature.com led by @patricepottier.bsky.social! We demonstrated global vulnerability of amphibians to warming, threatening 10% of >5,000 species examined. How did we do it? See thread🧵

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Huge thank you to @unsw.bsky.social and the E&ERC
for supporting me throughout this research.

I am also incredibly thankful to have been able to do this work on the traditional land of the Bedegal people. I feel gifted to learn from thousands of years of cultural and natural heritage.

🧵(27/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
A massive thank you to all my co-authors @ecophys.bsky.social , @nicholaswu.bsky.social , @agunderson.bsky.social n, Julie Rej, Nayelli Rivera-Villanueva, @pietropollo.bsky.social ,
Samantha Burke, @szymekdr.bsky.social & @itchyshin.bsky.social
I couldn't have done this without you!

🧵(26/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
There is also a dedicated web page hosted in
@github if you would like to go through the analyses and see some additional results and visualisations! 🌟

p-pottier.github.io/Vulnerabilit...

🧵(25/27)
Vulnerability of amphibians to global warming
p-pottier.github.io
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
We explore things in more detail in the paper, so please check it out and let me know if you have any questions!

doi.org/10.1038/s415...

This was by far the most challenging, but also rewarding project of my PhD (4 years from conceptualisation to publication). So glad to see this out!!

🧵(24/27)
Vulnerability of amphibians to global warming
doi.org
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
6. Microenvironmental complexity is vital for thermoregulation.

The availability of shade, vegetation, and water bodies is critical in buffering amphibians during heat waves. Immediate action is needed to manage these microhabitat features (esp. water sources!) ⚠️

🧵(23/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
5. Amphibians are vulnerable globally.

Both temperate and tropical amphibians are predicted to experience overheating events!

It is not safe to assume that tropical ectotherms are most vulnerable to warming, it is region- and species-specific ⚠️

🧵(22/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
4. We need to incorporate realistic temperature fluctuations in climate vulnerability assessments.

Using averaged temperatures does not reliably inform vulnerability risk because extreme heat events 🌡️ are the very phenomena triggering overheating events ⚠️

🧵(21/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
3. Plasticity is not able to buffer amphibians from extreme temperature events.

Although plasticity allows amphibians to adjust their thermal limits, it is not sufficient to compensate for projected temperature increases under global warming 😰

🧵(20/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
2. The impacts of global warming on amphibians will escalate abruptly.

Differences projected under 2 or 4°C of warming are enormous. We need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions before it is too late🥵

🧵(19/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Ok, but what does this all mean? 🤔

1. Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to extreme temperature events.

Our estimates are in fact conservative (assume constant access to shade and wet skin). The impacts of warming will be much stronger than what we predict 😱

🧵(18/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
This is very different from our results with TSM 🤔

In fact, calculating TSM based on averaged temperature profiles hides critical tipping points for thermal stress (c,d)! ⚠️

Therefore, capturing daily temperature variation is key in assessing vulnerability risk!

🧵(17/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
We did not find uniform latitudinal patterns in the predicted number of overheating events ⚠️

In the S. Hemisphere, tropical species encounter disproportionally more overheating events, while in the N. Hemisphere, non-tropical species are more susceptible (a,b)

🧵(16/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Interestingly, our models show that most amphibians will not overheat in aquatic microenvironments 💧. Only 11 species would be vulnerable under extreme climate warming scenarios.

This clearly demonstrates the importance of water bodies for amphibian thermoregulation⚠️

🧵(15/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM
We predicted that 104 species (2%) are already exposed to overheating events, and 4°C of global warming would push 7.5% of species beyond their thermal limits in terrestrial conditions (a)

In arboreal conditions (b), numbers are slightly lower, but we find similar patterns

🧵(14/27)
March 6, 2025 at 11:36 PM