ReviewEcology letters2022
Developmental plasticity in thermal tolerance: Ontogenetic variation, persistence, and future directions.
Review in Ecology letters, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Developmental environments do not affect thermal physiological traits in reptiles: an experimental test and meta-analysis.Biology letters · 2023Pooled it
- Limited capacity for rapid acclimation to marine heatwaves in coastal invertebrates.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- Thermal bottlenecks constrain early-life survival of native fish in regulated rivers.Science advances · 2026Article
- Regulatory Responses of Ectothermic Embryos to Predicted Heat Stresses Under Near-Future Climate Change.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- The Priming Impacts of Early Hypoxia Exposure in Abalone Parents Are Transmitted to Offspring.Molecular ecology · 2026Article
- Adaptive variation in avian eggshell gas conductance and structure across elevational gradients?eLife · 2026Article
- Embryonic Hormetic Priming Modulates Later-Life Thermal Tolerance.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Energy availability influences the dynamics of thermal phenotypic plasticity.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Embryos are largely understudied in a representative sample of journals in conservation physiology.Conservation physiology · 2026Article
- Carryover Effects on Reproduction Can Buffer Against Mortality-Driven Population Declines at Elevated Developmental Temperatures.Ecology letters · 2025Article
- Cryptic Reproductive Costs of Heatwaves for Animal Populations.Global change biology · 2025Review
- Thermal performance curves, activity and survival in a free-ranging ectotherm.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Phenotypic plasticity underlies seasonal and latitudinal variation in thermal tolerance in a native bee.Ecology · 2025Article
- Temperature and the progression of developmental milestones in embryogenesis of a marine ectotherm.Open biology · 2025Article
- Global thermal tolerance compilation for freshwater invertebrates and fish.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Effects of rearing temperature on growth, energy reserves, and thermal plasticity of juvenile lake sturgeon.Fish physiology and biochemistry · 2025Article
- Salmonid sensory system development is affected by climate change driven temperature increases.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Seasonal plasticity of thermal tolerance indicates resilience to future climate in Australian damselflies.Oecologia · 2025Article
- Heat limits scale with metabolism in ectothermic animals.The Journal of animal ecology · 2025Article
- Location-Scale Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression as a Tool to Capture Large-Scale Changes in Biological and Methodological Heterogeneity: A Spotlight on Heteroscedasticity.Global change biology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Understanding the factors affecting thermal tolerance is crucial for predicting the impact climate change will have on ectotherms. However, the role developmental plasticity plays in allowing populations to cope with thermal extremes is poorly understood. Here, we meta-analyse how thermal tolerance is initially and persistently impacted by early (embryonic and juvenile) thermal environments by using data from 150 experimental studies on 138 ectothermic species. Thermal tolerance only increased by 0.13°C per 1°C change in developmental temperature and substantial variation in plasticity (~36%) was the result of shared evolutionary history and species ecology. Aquatic ectotherms were more than three times as plastic as terrestrial ectotherms. Notably, embryos expressed weaker but more heterogenous plasticity than older life stages, with numerous responses appearing as non-adaptive. While developmental temperatures did not have persistent effects on thermal tolerance overall, persistent effects were vastly under-studied, and their direction and magnitude varied with ontogeny. Embryonic stages may represent a critical window of vulnerability to changing environments and we urge researchers to consider early life stages when assessing the climate vulnerability of ectotherms. Overall, our synthesis suggests that developmental changes in thermal tolerance rarely reach levels of perfect compensation and may provide limited benefit in changing environments.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.