Just published online (free access) our article “Heat tolerance and acclimation capacity in underground arthropods living under common and stable thermal conditions”. In this study, we explored various heat tolerance traits in four subterranean species that belong to phylogenetically distant groups (beetles, springtails and diplopods) but live under similar selection pressures (i.e., exposed to the same constant environmental conditions for a long time). We found that these species can whistant much higher temperatures than those they experience in their natural habitat. It is particularly remarkable the extraordinary heat tolerance displayed by the studied diplopoda, a troglobiont species (i.e. obligate subterranean) which survived an exposure up to 30°C for more than 24 h. Even so, the tolerance of this species is much lower than that shown by most surface-dwelling invertebrates. This study is consistent with previous work suggesting that subterranean species have not adjusted their thermal tolerance ranges to the narrow range of temperature in which they live. In addition, we show that subterranean species could be affected by climate change very differently, despite living under similar and stable environmental conditions.
Full citation:
Pallarés, S., Colado, R., Pérez‐Fernández, T., Wesener, T., Ribera, I., & Sánchez‐Fernández, D. (2019). Heat tolerance and acclimation capacity in subterranean arthropods living under common and stable thermal conditions. Ecology and Evolution.
