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Responses of arthropod populations to warming depend on latitude: evidence from urban heat islands


Elsa Youngsteadt, Andrew F. Ernst, Robert R. Dunn, Steven D. Frank

2016

Biological effects of climate change are expected to vary geographically, with a strong signature of latitude. For ectothermic animals, there is systematic latitudinal variation in the relationship between climate and thermal performance curves, which describe the relationship between temperature and an organism’s fitness. Here, we ask whether these documented latitudinal patterns can be generalized to predict arthropod responses to warming across mid- and high temperate latitudes, for taxa whose thermal physiology has not been measured. To address this question, we used a novel natural experiment consisting of a series of urban warming gradients at different latitudes.

Youngsteadt E, Ernst AF, Dunn RR, Frank SD. Responses of arthropod populations to warming depend on latitude: evidence from urban heat islands. Glob Chang Biol. 2017 Apr;23(4):1436-1447. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13550. Epub 2016 Nov 21. PMID: 27809387.


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