Evolutionary Response to Rapid Climate Change

最近北美的气候变暖影响了每日和冬季的低温，而不是夏季和每日的高温。结果是冬天更暖和，夏天更长。因此，气候变暖应该会减轻寒冷压力，但会破坏季节性活动的模式。这项研究试图通过进行长期的选择实验来测试气候变暖是否会影响北方蚊子对增加的热量的耐受性或发育、繁殖、冬眠和迁徙的季节性模式的时间。了解植物和动物对全球气候变化的反应，对于保护生物多样性、预测蚊子和其他潜在疾病媒介的传播，以及评估为生物防治而计划引入捕食者和寄生虫的效果非常重要。“全球变暖”一词意味着气候变化的主要影响是对植物和动物施加的热应激水平，但全球变暖在北纬地区的发展速度比南纬地区快，并且将更多地缓解冷应激而不是增加热应激。与此同时，气候变暖可能正在破坏季节性发育的遗传模式：生物体将过早地停止繁殖和冬眠。本研究将测试温度耐受性和季节活动时间对温带生物性能的相对重要性。

Recent climate warming in North America has affected daily and winter low temperatures rather than summer and daily high temperatures. The result is milder winters and longer summers. Climate warming should therefore alleviate cold stress but disrupt patterns of seasonal activities. This research seeks to test whether climate warming affects the tolerance of increased heat or the timing of seasonal patterns of development, reproduction, hibernation, and migration among northern mosquitoes by performing a long-term selection experiment.Knowledge of the responses of plants and animals to global climate change is important for conserving biodiversity, for predicting the spread of mosquitoes and other potential vectors of disease, and for evaluating the efficacy of planned introductions of predators and parasites for biocontrol. The term "global warming" implies that the major impact of climate change is on the level of heat stress that will be imposed on plants and animals, but global warming is proceeding faster a northern than at southern latitudes and will serve to alleviate cold stress more then it imposes heat stress. At the same time, climate warming may be on disrupting inherited patterns of seasonal development: organisms will cease reproduction and hibernate too early. This research will test the relative importance of temperature tolerance and the timing of seasonal activities on performance of temperate organisms.