In the heat of the moment: Including realistic thermal fluctuations results in dramatically altered key population parameters

Abstract

Temperature is commonly acknowledged as one of the primary forces driving ectotherm vector populations, most notably by influencing metabolic rates and survival. Although numerous experiments have shown this for a wide variety of organisms, the vast majority has been conducted at constant temperatures and changes therein, while temperature is far from constant in nature, and includes seasonal and diurnal cycles. As fluctuating temperatures have been described to affect metabolic processes at (sub)cellular level, this calls for studies evaluating the relative importance of temperature fluctuations and the changes therein. To gain insight in the effects of temperature fluctuations on ectotherm development, survival, and sex ratio, we developed an inexpensive, easily reproducible, and open‐source, Arduino‐based temperature control system, which emulates natural sinusoidal fluctuations around the average temperature. We used this novel setup to compare the effects of constant (mean) temperatures, most commonly used in experiments, block schemes, and natural sinusoidal fluctuations as well as an extreme variant with twice its amplitude using the cosmopolitan mosquito species Culex pipiens s.l. as a study organism. Our system accurately replicated the preprogrammed temperature treatments under outdoor conditions, even more accurately than traditional methods. While no effects were detected on survival and sex ratio within the ranges of variation evaluated, development was sped up considerably by including temperature fluctuations, especially during pupation, where development under constant temperatures took almost a week (30%) longer than under natural fluctuations. Doubling the amplitude further decreased development time by 1.5 days. These results highlight the importance of including (natural) oscillations in experiments on ectotherm organisms – both aquatic and terrestrial – that use temperature as a variable. Ultimately, these results have major repercussions for downstream effects at larger scales that may be studied with applications such as ecological niche models, disease risk models, and assessing ecosystem services that rely on ectotherm organisms.