When the wild things are: Defining mammalian diel activity and plasticity
Kadambari Devarajan, Mason Fidino, Zach J. Farris, Solny A. Adalsteinsson, Gabriel P. Andrade-Ponce, Julia L. Angstmann, Whitney J. B. Anthonysamy, Jesica Aquino, Addisu Asefa, Ana Belen Avila, Larissa L. Bailey, Leonardo S. Barbosa, Marcela de Frias Barreto, Owain Barton, Chloe E. Bates, Mayara Guimarães Beltrão, Tori Bird, Elizabeth G. Biro, Francesco Bisi, Daniel Bohórquez, Mark S. Boyce, Justin S. Brashares, Grace Bullington, Phoebe A. Burns, Jessica Burr, Andrew Butler, Kendall L. Calhoun, Trung Tien Cao, Natalia Casado, Juan Camilo Cepeda-Duque, Jonathon D. Cepek, Adriano Garcia Chiarello, Merri K. Collins, Pedro Cordeiro Estrela de Andrade Pinto, Sebastián Andrés Costa, Giacomo Cremonesi, Bogdan Cristescu, Paula Cruz, Anna Carolina Figueiredo de Albuquerque, Carlos De Angelo, Cláudia Bueno de Campos, Liana Mara Sena, Mario S. Di Bitetti, Douglas de Matos Dias, Duane R. Diefenbach, Tim S. Doherty, Thais P. dos Santos, Gabriela Teixeira Duarte, Timothy M. Eppley, John D. Erb, Carolina Franco Esteves, Bryn E. Evans, Manuela Falcão, Hugo Fernandes‐Ferreira, John Fieberg, Luiz Carlos Firmino de Souza Filho, Jason T. Fisher, Marie‐Josée Fortin, George A. Gale, Travis Gallo, Laken S. Ganoe, Rony Garcia‐Anleu, Kaitlyn M. Gaynor, Tiziana A. Gelmi‐Candusso, Phillys N. Gichuru, Quimey Gómez, Austin M. Green, Luiza Neves Guimarães, Jeffrey D. Haight, L Harris, Zachary Hawn, Jordan L. Heiman, Huy Quoc Hoang, Sarah E. Huebner, Fabiola Iannarilli, María Eugenia Iezzi, Jacob S. Ivan, Kodi Jo Jaspers, Mark J. Jordan, Jason M. Kamilar, Mamadou Kané, Morvarid Karimi, Marcella J. Kelly, Michel T. Kohl, William P. Kuvlesky, Andrew Ladle, Rachel N. Larson, Quy Tan Le, Duy Michael Le, Van Son Le, Elizabeth W. Lehrer, Patrick E. Lendrum, Jesse S. Lewis, Andrés Link, Diego J. Lizcano, Jason V. Lombardi, Robert A. Long, Eva López-Tello, Camile Lugarini, David Lugo
Abstract
Circadian rhythms are a mechanism by which species adapt to environmental variability and fundamental to understanding species behavior. However, we lack data and a standardized framework to accurately assess and compare temporal activity for species during rapid ecological change. Through a global network representing 38 countries, we leveraged 8.9 million mammalian observations to create a library of 14,587 standardized diel activity estimates for 445 species. We found that less than half the species' estimates were in agreement with diel classifications from the reference literature and that species commonly used more than one diel classification. Species diel activity was highly plastic when exposed to anthropogenic change. Furthermore, body size and distributional extent were strongly associated with whether a species is diurnal or nocturnal. Our findings provide essential knowledge of species behavior in an era of rapid global change and suggest the need for a new, quantitative framework that defines diel activity logically and consistently while capturing species plasticity.