Thermal dependence of biological rates

Temperature affects biological processes on many levels of biological organisation yet many temperature-dependent traits show great diversity within and among species with direct consequences for how organisms respond to a warming climate.

To understand the effect of the temperature-dependence of biological rates shapes trends in physiological trait diversity, my colleages and I take a comparative approach on a macroecological scale using the non-linear relationship between biological rates and temperature as a null hypothesis.

We find that much variation in widely characterised critical temperature limits in ectotherms can be explained by the non-linear relationship between biological rates and temperature, acclimation temperature, and rates of heating. Theses results suggest that rising temperatures are not as detrimental to ectotherms as previously suggested and that ectotherms have unappreciated capabilities of responding to thermal variability, at least based on laboratory derived measures of thermal tolerance.

This is a Science Foundation Ireland funded position with Nicholas Payne