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Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications

Animal physiology, ecology and evolution are affected by temperature and it is expected that community structure will be strongly influenced by global warming. This is particularly relevant in the tropics, where organisms are already living close to their upper temperature limits and hence are highl...

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Autores principales: Nguyen, Khanh Dung T., Morley, Simon A., Lai, Chien-Houng, Clark, Melody S., Tan, Koh Siang, Bates, Amanda E., Peck, Lloyd S.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248430/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22242115
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029340
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author Nguyen, Khanh Dung T.
Morley, Simon A.
Lai, Chien-Houng
Clark, Melody S.
Tan, Koh Siang
Bates, Amanda E.
Peck, Lloyd S.
author_facet Nguyen, Khanh Dung T.
Morley, Simon A.
Lai, Chien-Houng
Clark, Melody S.
Tan, Koh Siang
Bates, Amanda E.
Peck, Lloyd S.
author_sort Nguyen, Khanh Dung T.
collection PubMed
description Animal physiology, ecology and evolution are affected by temperature and it is expected that community structure will be strongly influenced by global warming. This is particularly relevant in the tropics, where organisms are already living close to their upper temperature limits and hence are highly vulnerable to rising temperature. Here we present data on upper temperature limits of 34 tropical marine ectotherm species from seven phyla living in intertidal and subtidal habitats. Short term thermal tolerances and vertical distributions were correlated, i.e., upper shore animals have higher thermal tolerance than lower shore and subtidal animals; however, animals, despite their respective tidal height, were susceptible to the same temperature in the long term. When temperatures were raised by 1°C hour(−1), the upper lethal temperature range of intertidal ectotherms was 41–52°C, but this range was narrower and reduced to 37–41°C in subtidal animals. The rate of temperature change, however, affected intertidal and subtidal animals differently. In chronic heating experiments when temperature was raised weekly or monthly instead of every hour, upper temperature limits of subtidal species decreased from 40°C to 35.4°C, while the decrease was more than 10°C in high shore organisms. Hence in the long term, activity and survival of tropical marine organisms could be compromised just 2–3°C above present seawater temperatures. Differences between animals from environments that experience different levels of temperature variability suggest that the physiological mechanisms underlying thermal sensitivity may vary at different rates of warming.
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spelling pubmed-32484302012-01-12 Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications Nguyen, Khanh Dung T. Morley, Simon A. Lai, Chien-Houng Clark, Melody S. Tan, Koh Siang Bates, Amanda E. Peck, Lloyd S. PLoS One Research Article Animal physiology, ecology and evolution are affected by temperature and it is expected that community structure will be strongly influenced by global warming. This is particularly relevant in the tropics, where organisms are already living close to their upper temperature limits and hence are highly vulnerable to rising temperature. Here we present data on upper temperature limits of 34 tropical marine ectotherm species from seven phyla living in intertidal and subtidal habitats. Short term thermal tolerances and vertical distributions were correlated, i.e., upper shore animals have higher thermal tolerance than lower shore and subtidal animals; however, animals, despite their respective tidal height, were susceptible to the same temperature in the long term. When temperatures were raised by 1°C hour(−1), the upper lethal temperature range of intertidal ectotherms was 41–52°C, but this range was narrower and reduced to 37–41°C in subtidal animals. The rate of temperature change, however, affected intertidal and subtidal animals differently. In chronic heating experiments when temperature was raised weekly or monthly instead of every hour, upper temperature limits of subtidal species decreased from 40°C to 35.4°C, while the decrease was more than 10°C in high shore organisms. Hence in the long term, activity and survival of tropical marine organisms could be compromised just 2–3°C above present seawater temperatures. Differences between animals from environments that experience different levels of temperature variability suggest that the physiological mechanisms underlying thermal sensitivity may vary at different rates of warming. Public Library of Science 2011-12-29 /pmc/articles/PMC3248430/ /pubmed/22242115 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029340 Text en Nguyen et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Nguyen, Khanh Dung T.
Morley, Simon A.
Lai, Chien-Houng
Clark, Melody S.
Tan, Koh Siang
Bates, Amanda E.
Peck, Lloyd S.
Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications
title Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications
title_full Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications
title_fullStr Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications
title_full_unstemmed Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications
title_short Upper Temperature Limits of Tropical Marine Ectotherms: Global Warming Implications
title_sort upper temperature limits of tropical marine ectotherms: global warming implications
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3248430/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22242115
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0029340
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