Institute of Cell and System Biology, Universität Hamburg, Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3, 20146, Hamburg, Germany.
Department of Life Sciences, The Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK.
J Therm Biol. 2022 May;106:103233. doi: 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2022.103233. Epub 2022 Apr 8.
Temperature-induced developmental plasticity could allow amphibian larvae to complete metamorphosis successfully despite new thermal challenges and increased desiccation risk due to climate change. Here we investigated how the capacity for temperature-induced developmental plasticity varies with latitude and whether population-specific biogeographic background accounts for the different degree of plastic responses to temperature. We carried out a combined analysis based on the data from 150 studies (93 articles) performed on 64 amphibian species. We collected empirical data for age and size at metamorphosis in amphibian larvae acclimated to different temperatures during development and found that all larvae from all populations in these studies revealed a change in metamorphic traits with a given change in temperature and thus, were able to exhibit temperature-induced developmental plasticity. Age at metamorphosis was more affected by temperature than size at metamorphosis. Age and size at the onset of metamorphosis were generally lowest at warmest temperatures during development. Furthermore, populations from tropical latitudes were less sensitive to a change in developmental temperature compared to populations from higher latitudes. Accordingly, we suggest tropical populations to be the most vulnerable to increasing temperatures during metamorphosis. Our analyses reveal biases with respect to taxonomy, biogeographic distribution of species, and study design. Data from tropical populations are underrepresented and thus, the capacity for developmental plasticity of the most threatened species probably remains poorly understood. Future studies should focus on under-represented regions, most threatened species, and include a broader range of temperatures during development in order to make robust projections on future sensitivity of populations to climate change.
温度诱导的发育可塑性可以使两栖动物幼虫即使在新的热挑战和由于气候变化而增加的干燥风险下也能成功完成变态。在这里，我们研究了温度诱导的发育可塑性的能力如何随纬度而变化，以及种群特有的生物地理背景是否解释了对温度的不同程度的塑性反应。我们基于在 93 篇文章中对 64 种两栖动物进行的 150 项研究的数据进行了综合分析。我们收集了在发育过程中适应不同温度的两栖动物幼虫变态时的年龄和大小的经验数据，发现这些研究中的所有幼虫种群都表现出与温度变化相关的变态特征变化，因此能够表现出温度诱导的发育可塑性。与变态时的大小相比，变态时的年龄受温度的影响更大。在发育过程中，最温暖的温度下，变态的起始年龄和大小通常最低。此外，与高纬度地区的种群相比，来自热带地区的种群对发育温度变化的敏感性较低。因此，我们认为热带种群在变态过程中对温度升高最脆弱。我们的分析揭示了在分类学、物种的生物地理分布和研究设计方面存在偏见。来自热带地区的种群的数据代表性不足，因此，最受威胁物种的发育可塑性的能力可能仍然了解甚少。未来的研究应集中在代表性不足的地区、最受威胁的物种，并在发育过程中包括更广泛的温度范围，以便对未来种群对气候变化的敏感性做出可靠预测。
