Quantifying thermal extremes and biological variation to predict evolutionary responses to changing climate.

ABSTRACT: Central ideas from thermal biology, including thermal performance curves and tolerances, have been widely used to evaluate how changes in environmental means and variances generate changes in fitness, selection and microevolution in response to climate change. We summarize the opportunities and challenges for extending this approach to understanding the consequences of extreme climatic events. Using statistical tools from extreme value theory, we show how distributions of thermal extremes vary with latitude, time scale and climate change. Second, we review how performance curves and tolerances have been used to predict the fitness and evolutionary responses to climate change and climate gradients. Performance curves and tolerances change with prior thermal history and with time scale, comp

SUBMITTER: Kingsolver JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5434097 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature