Understanding Climate Change Threats to Vertebrate Wildlife by Studying Ecoimmunology Across Biological Scales

Climate change threatens organismal health and ecological stability in myriad ways, the impacts of which are often difficult to characterize given their complex and interacting nature. To facilitate comparisons across taxa and ecosystems, we discuss the importance of a cross-scale approach to better characterize the ways in which climate change processes threaten wildlife immunity. Centering available examples from the vertebrate wildlife literature, we supplement with examples from the livestock literature to illustrate ways in which abiotic stress impacts immunity from molecular to community scales of biological organization. To highlight opportunities for cross-scale integration, we present a series of vignettes-drought, temperature extremes, storms and flooding, and habitat alterations and shifts-prior to discussing the complexities inherent to studying multiple interacting threats using heavy metal contamination as an example. Finally, we outline mechanisms by which collaborations across disciplines and sectors can continue strengthening capacity for studying the drivers of climate change-associated threats to wildlife immunology.