The assessment of thermal tolerance holds significant importance in predicting the physiological responses of ectotherms, particularly in elucidating their capacity for evolutionary adaptation in the context of global warming. Current approaches to assessing thermal tolerance have limitations that can lead to misleading results, especially with regard to the heritability of thermal limits. In this study, we examined twenty isogenic lines of Drosophila melanogaster from the DGRP panel to characterize their thermal death time (TDT) curves, which account for the duration and intensity of heat stress. Furthermore, we examined the extent of genetic variation in the intercept and slope of the linear TDT curves, which are labelled as CTmax and thermal sensitivity z. Our analysis revealed evidence of heritable variation in each of the two parameters. Furthermore, simulations of the evolutionary consequences of selection on either CTmax or z indicate that selection on one parameter induces changes in the other parameter as a correlated response. We conclude that the evolution of thermosensitive or thermotolerant strategies is better achieved by directional selection to decrease or increase CTmax, which may aid in mitigating the effects of global warming on ectotherms.

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Genetic variation of heat tolerance in a model ectotherm: an approach using thermal death time curves

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Authors

Felix P. Leiva , Mauro Santos, Edwin J Niklitschek, Enrico L. Rezende, Wilco C.E.P. Verberk

Abstract

 The assessment of thermal tolerance holds significant importance in predicting the physiological responses of ectotherms, particularly in elucidating their capacity for evolutionary adaptation in the context of global warming. Current approaches to assessing thermal tolerance have limitations that can lead to misleading results, especially with regard to the heritability of thermal limits. In this study, we examined twenty isogenic lines of Drosophila melanogaster from the DGRP panel to characterize their thermal death time (TDT) curves, which account for the duration and intensity of heat stress. Furthermore, we examined the extent of genetic variation in the intercept and slope of the linear TDT curves, which are labelled as CTmax and thermal sensitivity z. Our analysis revealed evidence of heritable variation in each of the two parameters. Furthermore, simulations of the evolutionary consequences of selection on either CTmax or z indicate that selection on one parameter induces changes in the other parameter as a correlated response. We conclude that the evolution of thermosensitive or thermotolerant strategies is better achieved by directional selection to decrease or increase CTmax, which may aid in mitigating the effects of global warming on ectotherms.


DOI

https://doi.org/10.32942/X20C9T

Subjects

Biology, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Life Sciences, Physiology

Keywords

global warming, heritability, isogenic lines, thermal death times curves, heritability, isogenic lines, thermal death time curves

Dates

Published: 2024-06-20 07:19

Last Updated: 2024-06-24 23:15

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License

CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

Additional Metadata

Language:
English

Conflict of interest statement:
None

Data and Code Availability Statement:
Data files and code supporting analyses, figures and tables of this study are publicly available on GitHub (https://github.com/felixpleiva/Genetic_variation_TDT). When using the code from this manuscript, please cite it as: Leiva FP, Santos M, Niklitschek EJ, Rezende EL, & Verberk WCEP. (2024). Paper data and code for: Genetic variation of heat tolerance in a model ectotherm: an approach using thermal death time curves. Zenodo. DOI will be available here.