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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Thermal physiology of the fingered limpet Lottia digitalis under emersion and immersion
TL;DR: Emersed limpets had a greater upper thermal limit on cardiac performance, with the ability to maintain heart rate at a temperature 3–5°C higher than that for immersed limpets, and greater levels of ubiquitin-conjugated proteins were found under emersed conditions compared with immersion.
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Plastic and evolutionary responses to heat stress in a temperate dung fly: negative correlation between basal and induced heat tolerance?
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TL;DR: The results indicate that heat tolerance of temperate insects can evolve under rising temperatures, but this response could be limited by a negative relationship between basal and induced thermotolerance, and may involve some but not other fitness‐related traits.
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Wetland conservation and sustainable use under global change: a tropical Australian case study using magpie geese
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Thermal resistance and performance correlate with climate in populations of a widespread mosquito.
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Future no‐analogue vegetation produced by no‐analogue combinations of temperature and insolation
Björn Reu,Sönke Zaehle,Kristin Bohn,Ryan Pavlick,Sebastian Schmidtlein,John W. Williams,Axel Kleidon +6 more
TL;DR: Tobetter et al. as mentioned in this paper used JeDi, a process-based vegetation model, to identify the assembly of plant functional types into no-analogue associations under scenarios of global warming.
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