Munch Stephan B, Salinas Santiago
School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY 11794-5000, USA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 Aug 18;106(33):13860-4. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0900300106. Epub 2009 Jul 30.
Many ectotherms exhibit striking latitudinal gradients in lifespan. However, it is unclear whether lifespan gradients in distantly related taxa share a common mechanistic explanation. We compiled data on geographic variation in lifespan in ectotherms from around the globe to determine how much of this intraspecific variation in lifespan may be explained by temperature using the simple predictions of the metabolic theory of ecology. We found that the metabolic theory accurately predicts how lifespan varies with temperature within species in a wide range of ectotherms in both controlled laboratory experiments and free-living populations. After removing the effect of temperature, only a small fraction of species showed significant trends with latitude. There was, however, considerable residual intraspecific variation indicating that other, more local factors are likely to be important in determining lifespan within species. These findings suggest that, given predicted increases in global temperature, lifespan of ectotherms may be substantially shortened in the future.
许多变温动物的寿命呈现出显著的纬度梯度变化。然而，亲缘关系较远的分类群中寿命梯度是否存在共同的机理解释尚不清楚。我们收集了全球变温动物寿命的地理变异数据，以利用生态学代谢理论的简单预测来确定这种种内寿命变异中有多少可以用温度来解释。我们发现，在受控实验室实验和自由生活种群中，代谢理论都能准确预测广泛的变温动物物种内寿命随温度的变化情况。去除温度影响后，只有一小部分物种呈现出显著的纬度趋势。然而，种内仍存在相当大的残余变异，这表明其他更局部的因素可能对决定物种内的寿命很重要。这些发现表明，考虑到全球温度预计会升高，变温动物的寿命未来可能会大幅缩短。
