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Miguel B. Araújo Lab

Predicting the effects of environmental change on biodiversity

You are here: Home / Research Highlights / The evolution of critical thermal limits of life on Earth

The evolution of critical thermal limits of life on Earth

  • Nature Communications (2021 )
  • Authors: Joanne M. Bennett, Jennifer Sunday, Piero Calosi, Fabricio Villalobos, Brezo Martínez, Rafael Molina-Venegas, Miguel B. Araújo, Adam C. Algar, Susana Clusella-Trullas, Bradford A. Hawkins, Sally A. Keith, Ingolf Kühn, Carsten Rahbek, Laura Rodríguez, Alexander Singer, Ignacio Morales-Castilla & Miguel Ángel Olalla-Tárraga
  • Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21263-8?fbclid=IwAR0l8oMZQ4Z0K7a6KCt96_I-QwRX3sK7kBnqVF273Z0eLS_mH1lxK7G158k

Understanding how species’ thermal limits have evolved across the tree of life is central to predicting species’ responses to climate change. Here, using experimentally-derived estimates of thermal tolerance limits for over 2000 terrestrial and aquatic species, we show that most of the variation in thermal tolerance can be attributed to a combination of adaptation to current climatic extremes, and the existence of evolutionary ‘attractors’ that reflect either boundaries or optima in thermal tolerance limits. Our results also reveal deep-time climate legacies in ectotherms, whereby orders that originated in cold paleoclimates have presently lower cold tolerance limits than those with warm thermal ancestry. Conversely, heat tolerance appears unrelated to climate ancestry. Cold tolerance has evolved more quickly than heat tolerance in endotherms and ectotherms. If the past tempo of evolution for upper thermal limits continues, adaptive responses in thermal limits will have limited potential to rescue the large majority of species given the unprecedented rate of contemporary climate change.

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News

  • The Grand Jury of the Gulbenkian Prize for Humanity Meets in Berlin
  • L’Oréal UNESCO Award For Women in Science
  • Miguel Araújo appointed Chair of one of 4 Scientific Councils of FCT
  • Position available: PhD candidate in Community Ecology and Systematic Conservation Planning
  • Position available: Assistant Researcher for NaturaConnect

Outreach

  • Além Risk (Beyond Risk) on RTP
  • 50 years of protected areas in Portugal
  • 200 anniversary of Alfred Russel Wallace
  • Além Risco (Beyond Risk) project
  • Is the planet full? TV programme

Opportunities

  • Position available: PhD candidate in Community Ecology and Systematic Conservation Planning
  • Position available: Assistant Researcher for NaturaConnect
  • La Caixa PhD studentship
  • Position available: Technician
  • Call for access to Iberian Pond data (2022)

Research Highlights

Human disturbances affect the topology of food webs

Biogeography of bird and mammal trophic structures

Strategy games to improve environmental policymaking

Response of an Afro-Palearctic bird migrant to glaciation cycles

Improvements in reports of species redistribution under climate change are required

Books

Biodiversidade 2030

Biodiversidade 2030

Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions

Ecological Niches and Geographic Distributions

Spatial Conservation Prioritization

Spatial Conservation Prioritization

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