Impacts of climate warming on terrestrial ectotherms across latitude.
Curtis Deutsch,Joshua J. Tewksbury,Raymond B. Huey,Kimberly S. Sheldon,Cameron K. Ghalambor,David C. Haak,Paul R. Martin,Paul R. Martin +7 more
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The results show that warming in the tropics, although relatively small in magnitude, is likely to have the most deleterious consequences because tropical insects are relatively sensitive to temperature change and are currently living very close to their optimal temperature, so that warming may even enhance their fitness.Abstract:
The impact of anthropogenic climate change on terrestrial organisms is often predicted to increase with latitude, in parallel with the rate of warming. Yet the biological impact of rising temperatures also depends on the physiological sensitivity of organisms to temperature change. We integrate empirical fitness curves describing the thermal tolerance of terrestrial insects from around the world with the projected geographic distribution of climate change for the next century to estimate the direct impact of warming on insect fitness across latitude. The results show that warming in the tropics, although relatively small in magnitude, is likely to have the most deleterious consequences because tropical insects are relatively sensitive to temperature change and are currently living very close to their optimal temperature. In contrast, species at higher latitudes have broader thermal tolerance and are living in climates that are currently cooler than their physiological optima, so that warming may even enhance their fitness. Available thermal tolerance data for several vertebrate taxa exhibit similar patterns, suggesting that these results are general for terrestrial ectotherms. Our analyses imply that, in the absence of ameliorating factors such as migration and adaptation, the greatest extinction risks from global warming may be in the tropics, where biological diversity is also greatest.read more
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Trehalose as an indicator of desiccation stress in Drosophila melanogaster larvae: a potential marker of anhydrobiosis.
TL;DR: The occurrence of anhydrobiosis in D. melanogaster larvae is reported here for the first time by subjecting them to desiccation stress under laboratory conditions and trehalose is proposed as a potential marker for the assessment of anHydrobiotics in Drosophila.
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Sub-littoral and supra-littoral amphipods respond differently to acute thermal stress
Daria Bedulina,Daria Bedulina,Daria Bedulina,Martin Zimmer,Maxim A. Timofeyev,Maxim A. Timofeyev,Maxim A. Timofeyev +6 more
TL;DR: It is concluded that the environmental temperature regime modifies key cellular defense mechanisms in amphipods andHigher levels of constitutive HSP synthesis and higher levels of antioxidant enzymes in the supra-littoral species likely reflects adaptation to this highly thermally variable environment.
Journal ArticleDOI
Impacts of climate change and environmental factors on reproduction and development in wildlife
TL;DR: There is a danger that the success of reproduction of humans provides a false sense of security for the public, media and politicians with respect to wildlife survival, the maintenance of viable ecosystems and the capacity for recovery of damaged ecosystems and endangered species.
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Biophysics, environmental stochasticity, and the evolution of thermal safety margins in intertidal limpets.
Mark W. Denny,W. Wesley Dowd +1 more
TL;DR: A mechanistic approach is employed to predict the potential for rapid evolution of thermal tolerance in the intertidal limpet Lottia gigantea, using biophysical principles to predict body temperature as a function of the state of the environment, and an environmental bootstrap procedure to predict how the environment fluctuates through time.
Journal ArticleDOI
Forest biomass, productivity and carbon cycling along a rainfall gradient in West Africa
Sam Moore,Stephen Adu-Bredu,Akwasi Duah-Gyamfi,Akwasi Duah-Gyamfi,Shalom D. Addo-Danso,Shalom D. Addo-Danso,Forzia Ibrahim,Armel Thongo M’Bou,Agnès de Grandcourt,Riccardo Valentini,Giacomo Nicolini,Gloria Djagbletey,Kennedy Owusu-Afriyie,Agne Gvozdevaite,Imma Oliveras,Maria C. Ruiz-Jaen,Yadvinder Malhi +16 more
TL;DR: Through a systematic assessment of forest productivity the importance of directly measuring the main components of above and belowground NPP is demonstrated and the establishment of more permanent carbon intensive monitoring plots across the tropics is encouraged.
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