SynthesisJournal of evolutionary biology2023
Evolution of thermal performance curves: A meta-analysis of selection experiments.
Synthesis in Journal of evolutionary biology, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 15 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
15 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Evolution of thermal performance curves: A meta-analysis of selection experiments.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2023Pooled it
- Deconstruction ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Temporal Autocorrelation Increases Temperature-Driven Extinction Risk by Clustering Stressful Conditions.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Environmental Stochasticity Drives Adaptation to Cooler Thermal Optima in Competition.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2026Article
- Toward a general understanding of thermal performance curves in biology.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Decades of historical outbreak cycles in a multivoltine insect reveal a plastic phenological response to climate change.Ecology · 2025Article
- The evolution of thermal performance curves in response to rising temperatures across the model genus yeast.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Temperature structuring of microbial communities on a global scale.Current opinion in microbiology · 2024Review
- Experimental Evolution in a Warming World: The Omics Era.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Review
- Correlated responses to selection across diverse environments during experimental evolution ofEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Plasticity and the adaptive evolution of switchlike reaction norms under environmental change.Evolution letters · 2024Article
- Thermal constraints on exercise and metabolic performance do not explain the use of dormancy as an overwintering strategy in the cunner (Tautogolabrus adspersus).The Journal of experimental biology · 2024Article
- Effect of temperature on growth, survival, and chronic stress responses of Arctic Grayling juveniles.Transactions of the American Fisheries Society · 2024Article
- Rapid evolution of unimodal but not of linear thermal performance curves inProceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Thermal performance of the heterotrophic dinoflagellateJournal of plankton researchArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Temperatures are increasing due to global changes, putting biodiversity at risk. Organisms are faced with a limited set of options to cope with this situation: adapt, disperse or die. We here focus on the first possibility, more specifically, on evolutionary adaptations to temperature. Ectotherms are usually characterized by a hump-shaped relationship between fitness and temperature, a non-linear reaction norm that is referred to as thermal performance curve (TPC). To understand and predict impacts of global change, we need to know whether and how such TPCs evolve. Therefore, we performed a systematic literature search and a statistical meta-analysis focusing on experimental evolution and artificial selection studies. This focus allows us to directly quantify relative fitness responses to temperature selection by calculating fitness differences between TPCs from ancestral and derived populations after thermal selection. Out of 7561 publications screened, we found 47 studies corresponding to our search criteria representing taxa across the tree of life, from bacteria, to plants and vertebrates. We show that, independently of species identity, the studies we found report a positive response to temperature selection. Considering entire TPC shapes, adaptation to higher temperatures traded off with fitness at lower temperatures, leading to niche shifts. Effects were generally stronger in unicellular organisms. By contrast, we do not find statistical support for the often discussed "Hotter is better" hypothesis. While our meta-analysis provides evidence for adaptive potential of TPCs across organisms, it also highlights that more experimental work is needed, especially for under-represented taxa, such as plants and non-model systems.
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