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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A cross‐seasonal perspective on local adaptation: metabolic plasticity mediates responses to winter in a thermal‐generalist moth
TL;DR: Each ecotype had higher overwinter survival in their natal compared with non-natal winter environment, and this suggests that the ecotypes are locally adapted to winter conditions, which suggests performance of peripheral populations may not be enhanced by warming winters.
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Indirect effect of climate change: Shifts in ratsnake behavior alter intensity and timing of avian nest predation
TL;DR: Agent-based modeling is used to explore how climate warming may alter activity patterns and habitat use of ratsnakes and how this will change their interactions with nesting birds.
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Using ecophysiological traits to predict climatic and activity niches: lethal temperature and water loss in Mediterranean ants
TL;DR: Relatively simple physiological traits alone, especially thermal tolerance, combined with some behavioural and natural history traits, can be important predictors of species biogeographical climatic niches.
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Exploring the functional association between physiological plasticity, climatic variability, and geographical latitude: lessons from land snails
Daniel E. Naya,Tamara P. Catalán,Paulina Artacho,Juan Diego Gaitán-Espitia,Roberto F. Nespolo +4 more
TL;DR: Flexibility in the weight of the organs analysed changed in a similar fashion to annual temperature variation at each locality, suggesting that, as stated by the Climatic variability hypothesis, climatic variability is the main force behind physiological plasticity.
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Effect of extreme sea surface temperature events on the demography of an age-structured albatross population.
TL;DR: Assessment of how changes in mean and standard deviation of sea surface temperature (SST), frequency and magnitude of warm SST extreme climatic events (ECE) influenced the stochastic population growth rate log(λs) and age structure of a black-browed albatross population found a larger environmental mean increased the occurrence of SST close to this optimum that buffered the negative effect of ECE.
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