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 extremes: geographic patterns, recent changes, and implications for organismal vulnerabilities
TL;DR: The CLIMDEX indices of thermal extremes, adopted, show weak geographic concordance, implying that organisms in different regions will face different forms of thermal stress, and are likely to face novel thermal stresses.
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Long-term monitoring at multiple trophic levels suggests heterogeneity in responses to climate change in the Canadian Arctic tundra
Gilles Gauthier,Joël Bêty,Marie-Christine Cadieux,Pierre Legagneux,Madeleine Doiron,Clément Chevallier,Sandra Lai,Arnaud Tarroux,Dominique Berteaux +8 more
TL;DR: The long-term monitoring records available on Bylot Island in the Canadian Arctic are used to examine temporal trends in population attributes of several terrestrial vertebrates and in primary production to explain the lack of response by herbivores and predators to climate warming.
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Forecasting the impacts of chemical pollution and climate change interactions on the health of wildlife.
Pamela D. Noyes,Sean C. Lema +1 more
TL;DR: This article summarized what is currently known about the potential reciprocal effects of climate change and chemical toxicity on wildlife, and depict current ap- proaches and ongoing challenges for incorporating climate effects into chemical testing and assessment.
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Edible insects: An overview on nutritional characteristics, safety, farming, production technologies, regulatory framework, and socio-economic and ethical implications
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors give an overview on several aspects of edible insects: nutritional characteristics; physical, chemical, and microbiological hazards; presence of antinutritional substances or allergens; gathering and farming; production technologies and patents; legal status worldwide; socioeconomic and ethical implications.
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Thermal tolerances of sea turtle embryos: current understanding and future directions
TL;DR: Overall, the authors are only beginning to understand how exposure to high temperatures experienced in the field influences embryonic development and hatchling production, and this knowledge gap is hampering the ability to predict the impacts of climate change on sea turtle populations.
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