Thermal performance of ecosystems: Modeling how physiological responses to temperature scale up in communities

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dc.contributor.authorFebvre, Camille
dc.contributor.authorGoldblatt, Colin
dc.contributor.authorEl-Sabaawi, Rana
dc.date.accessioned2025-10-27T18:40:31Z
dc.date.available2025-10-27T18:40:31Z
dc.date.issued2024
dc.description.abstractUnderstanding how ecosystems respond to their environmental temperature is a major challenge. Thermodynamic constraints on species’ metabolic rates are expected to affect ecosystem characteristics, but species interactions and interspecific variation in physiological thermal response curves (TRC) may obscure ecosystem-level responses to temperature. As a result, macroecological patterns related to temperature are still poorly understood. We investigate how physiological TRC scale up to ecosystem-level thermal responses by modifying the Tangled Nature (TaNa) model, a stochastic network model of ecology and evolution. We include new parameterizations that make reproduction, death, and mutation temperature-dependent. We find that ecosystem survival probability depends on how the minimum fitness required for species survival varies with temperature. The thermal response of ecosystem survival probability is the only ecosystem property that is sensitive to interspecific variation in TRC. Species richness scales up directly from the TRC of mutation rate, and average species population sizes are inversely related to mutation rate, with Species Abundance Distributions (SADs) exhibiting more rare species in warmer temperatures. Interactions between species are also inversely related to mutation, with positive interactions occurring more frequently in colder temperatures. The abundance of surviving ecosystems is not sensitive to temperature. This work helps clarify the specific relationships between physiological responses to temperature and ecosystem-level repercussions when species are interacting and adapting to their thermal environments.
dc.description.reviewstatusReviewed
dc.description.scholarlevelFaculty
dc.description.sponsorshipFinancial support for this research was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) through Discovery Grants RGPIN-2018-05929 to Colin Goldblatt, and 2020-06495 to Rana El-Sabaawi.
dc.identifier.citationFebvre, C., Goldblatt, C., & El-Sabaawi, R. (2024). Thermal performance of ecosystems: Modeling how physiological responses to temperature scale up in communities. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 585, 111792. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2024.111792
dc.identifier.urihttps://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2024.111792
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1828/22873
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherJournal of Theoretical Biology
dc.rightsCC-BY 4.0
dc.rights.urihttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
dc.subjectcommunity
dc.subjectTangled Nature model
dc.subjectthermal response
dc.subject.departmentSchool of Earth and Ocean Sciences
dc.subject.departmentDepartment of Biology
dc.titleThermal performance of ecosystems: Modeling how physiological responses to temperature scale up in communities
dc.typeArticle

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