Cold Fronts Are Sweeping Across The Amazon Rainforest, And Here’s How It’s Impacting The Animals That Live There

The Amazon rainforest is always thought of as a pleasantly warm and tropical place, but it has periods of cold as well. These cold fronts cause temperatures to plunge, negatively affecting one group of animals that live there.
Researchers from the University of Würzburg studying biodiversity in the Amazon region in southern Peru experienced the cold for themselves in 2023.
On June 13, a cold spell caused temperatures to drop from an average of 75.02 degrees Fahrenheit to 50.9 degrees Fahrenheit.
The cool period lasted for nearly a week. Such a prolonged period of severe cold seemed strange to the research team, but the local field assistants explained that these cold spells occurred pretty often in the Amazon. So, the team decided to investigate how wildlife reacted to the cold snaps.
It is the first study to look into how cold waves affect wild animal communities in the Amazon region. Previously, there were only studies on the impact of cold waves on agriculture in the Amazon.
The researchers concluded that most of the insects and mammals included in the study coped well with the cold. However, a quarter of the analyzed insects had nearly reached the limit of their cold tolerance levels.
Some species could run into trouble if the cold spells become even colder in the future. In the light of climate change, this is a very likely scenario.
The researchers collected data during a cold spell from 12 camera traps used to document the activity of tapirs, jaguars, and other wild mammals.
They repeated the process a few months after the cold spell ended. During the cold wave, the biomass and activity of all insects decreased drastically.

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The following months showed a complete recovery, though. The one exception was the dung beetles. Apparently, they are more sensitive to the cold than other insect groups.
The researchers also determined the cold tolerance of various insects by cooling them down until they were unable to move.
The experiment proved that most insects can tolerate even lower temperatures than those that occurred in June 2023. But this was not the case for 25 percent of the insects.
“They go into torpor when the temperature is just [33.12 degrees Fahrenheit] below during the cold wave that measured [50.9 degrees],” said Pedro Alonso-Alonso, a researcher at the University of Würzburg.
During torpor, insects cannot move at all. If they stay in a state of torpor for longer than they currently do, it will likely have a negative impact on their survival.
Mammals were less active during the cold period as well. They can maintain a constant body temperature by reducing physical activity to conserve energy. After the cold front had passed, the mammals resumed their normal routines.
In the Amazon Basin, cold waves, in which temperatures see a sharp drop for at least three days in a row, occur frequently.
A total of 67 cold spells were identified between 1980 and 2017, some of which lasted up to eight days. The cold waves were mainly caused by cold air fronts traveling north from Antarctica.
The study was published in Biology Letters.
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