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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Temperature-dependent metabolism in Antarctic fish: Do habitat temperature conditions affect thermal tolerance ranges?
TL;DR: It is concluded that higher metabolic rates and thus higher energetic costs could be associated with narrower thermal windows, a potential disadvantage to the endemic high-Antarctic fish fauna facing the challenge of climate change.
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Climate change effects on above- and below-ground interactions in a dryland ecosystem
TL;DR: The complex responses found in this study suggest that future climate change will affect trophic levels and their interactions differentially, making extrapolation from individual species' responses and from one ecosystem to another very difficult.
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Trait means and reaction norms: the consequences of climate change/invasion interactions at the organism level
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Habitat associations of thermophilous butterflies are reduced despite climatic warming
TL;DR: It is concluded that climatic warming has ameliorated habitat contractions caused by other environmental drivers to some extent, but that habitat degradation continues to be a major driver of reductions in habitat breadth and population density of butterflies.
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Seasonal patterns of herbivory, leaf traits and productivity consumption in dry and wet Patagonian forests
TL;DR: Endemic herbivory can influence forest ecosystem function, but how annual productivity consumption relates to seasonal resource utilisation by folivore guilds remains poorly understood.
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