How rising average decadal temperature and drought affect bison body size along the Great Plains

What is it about?

Temperature and drought are increasing and expected to accelerate in coming decades. We correlate maximum body size of cohorts of bison from Wind Cave National Park, South Dakota and from 19 herds across the Great Plains to decadal warming and drought. These information better predict outcomes of warming and drought for bison, which are expected to halve by the end of the 21st Century.

Featured Image

Photo by Jonathan Mast on Unsplash

Photo by Jonathan Mast on Unsplash

Why is it important?

At Wind Cave, the dataset includes observations from 1966 to 2015 and finds that for every degree Celsius warming coincides with a loss of 115 kg from maximum body mass and for every unit increase of the Palmer Drought Severity Index bison lose 17 kg. Similar findings are found along the entire Great Plains.