Non‐lethal effects of climate change and infectious disease: An energetics approach to understanding population impacts

Abstract Climate change and infectious disease jointly impact species worldwide. In addition to causing conspicuous mortality events, these threats produce a range of non‐lethal effects that are often overlooked, yet can affect individual survival and fecundity, and ultimately, population and species viability. We develop an energetic framework that structures the study of non‐lethal effects of climate change and infectious disease and their downstream demographic consequences. The framework identifies pathways by which climate change and infectious disease affect the acquisition, storage and mobilisation of energy required for organismal survival and reproduction. The joint energetic effects of climate change and infectious disease, while often non‐lethal, can reduce fitness by increasing energetic demands, exacerbating energetic trade‐offs and accelerating physiological ageing. Considering the energetic mechanisms underlying non‐lethal effects can explain when and why recurrent and/or chronic events associated with climate change and infectious disease can be important limiting forces for populations and species. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.