ArticleEvolution letters2021
Large-scale evolution of body temperatures in land vertebrates.
Article in Evolution letters, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- A cellular basis for the mammalian nocturnal-diurnal switch.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2026Article
- Genomic traits associated with copiotrophy decouple from maximum growth rate predictions along temperature gradients.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Infrared thermography is a useful tool in research on thermoregulation and evolution of heat tolerance.Evolution letters · 2025Article
- Revisiting concepts of thermal physiology: understanding negative feedback and set-point in mammals, birds, and lizards.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- What's cooking? The effect of temperature on the immune response.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
- Heritable variation in thermal profiles is associated with reproductive success in the world's largest bird.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Does the expensive brain hypothesis apply to amphibians and reptiles?BMC ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Phasmid species that inhabit colder environments are less likely to have the ability to fly.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Photonic structures in radiative cooling.Light, science & applications · 2023Review
- Identification of exceptionally potent adenosine deaminases RNA editors from high body temperature organisms.PLoS genetics · 2023Article
- Genome-Wide Identification and Phylogenetic Analysis ofAnimals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Phenology and plasticity can prevent adaptive clines in thermal tolerance across temperate mountains: The importance of the elevation-time axis.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Evolved reductions in body temperature and the metabolic costs of thermoregulation in deer mice native to high altitude.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Evolution of diel activity patterns in skinks (Squamata: Scincidae), the world's second-largest family of terrestrial vertebrates.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Body temperature is a crucial variable in animals that affects nearly every aspect of their lives. Here we analyze for the first time largescale patterns in the evolution of body temperatures across terrestrial vertebrates (tetrapods: including amphibians, mammals, birds and other reptiles). Despite the traditional view that endotherms (birds and mammals) have higher body temperatures than ectotherms, we find they are not significantly different. However, rates of body-temperature evolution are significantly different, with lower rates in endotherms than ectotherms, and the highest rates in amphibians. We find that body temperatures show strong phylogenetic signal and conservatism over 350 million years of evolutionary history in tetrapods, and some lineages appear to have retained similar body temperatures over time for hundreds of millions of years. Although body temperatures are often unrelated to climate in tetrapods, we find that body temperatures are significantly related to day-night activity patterns. Specifically, body temperatures are generally higher in diurnal species than nocturnal species, both across ectotherms and, surprisingly, across endotherms also. Overall, our results suggest that body temperatures are significantly linked to phylogeny and diel-activity patterns within and among tetrapod groups, rather than just climate and the endotherm-ectotherm divide.
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