Predicting temperature mortality and selection in natural Drosophila populations

Abstract

Accounting for heat burdens As climate warming becomes more and more apparent and influential, there is an increasing desire to predict its long-term impacts on species. Classically, this has been done by extrapolating lethal limits based on those observed in the laboratory. In the real world, however, organisms do not experience a single high temperature that then returns to a comfortable temperature, but rather a series of high temperatures during the hot season. Rezende et al. accounted for these accumulative effects in a dynamic model that accurately predicted empirical patterns in wild fruit fly populations, showing that cumulative effects of warming temperatures can be included in future estimates (see the Perspective by Huey and Kearney). Science , this issue p. 1242 ; see also p. 1163