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Competition and resource depletion shape the thermal response of population fitness in Aedes aegypti.

Paul J HuxleyKris A MurraySamraat PawarLauren J Cator
Published in: Communications biology (2022)
Mathematical models that incorporate the temperature dependence of lab-measured life history traits are increasingly being used to predict how climatic warming will affect ectotherms, including disease vectors and other arthropods. These temperature-trait relationships are typically measured under laboratory conditions that ignore how conspecific competition in depleting resource environments-a commonly occurring scenario in nature-regulates natural populations. Here, we used laboratory experiments on the mosquito Aedes aegypti, combined with a stage-structured population model, to investigate this issue. We find that intensified larval competition in ecologically-realistic depleting resource environments can significantly diminish the vector's maximal population-level fitness across the entire temperature range, cause a ~6 °C decrease in the optimal temperature for fitness, and contract its thermal niche width by ~10 °C. Our results provide evidence for the importance of considering intra-specific competition under depleting resources when predicting how arthropod populations will respond to climatic warming.
Keyphrases
  • aedes aegypti
  • zika virus
  • dengue virus
  • body composition
  • physical activity
  • genome wide
  • resistance training
  • heart rate
  • blood pressure