Effects of in situ climate warming on monarch caterpillar (Danaus plexippus) development

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1 Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA
2 Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California - Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA
3 Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD, USA
DOI
10.7287/peerj.preprints.1240v1
Published
Accepted
Subject Areas
Climate Change Biology, Ecology, Entomology, Natural Resource Management
Keywords
temperature, pupal mass, survivorship, climate change, growth
Copyright
© 2015 Lemoine et al.
Licence
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ PrePrints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
Cite this article
Lemoine NP, Capdevielle JN, Parker JD. 2015. Effects of in situ climate warming on monarch caterpillar (Danaus plexippus) development. PeerJ PrePrints 3:e1240v1

Abstract

Climate warming will fundamentally alter basic life history strategies of many ectothermic insects. In the lab, rising temperatures increase growth rates of lepidopteran larvae, but also reduce final pupal mass and increase mortality. Using in situ field warming experiments on their natural host plants, we assessed the impact of climate warming on development of monarch (Danaus plexippus) larvae. Monarchs were reared on Asclepias tuberosa grown under ‘Ambient’ and ‘Warmed’ conditions. We quantified time to pupation, final pupal mass, and survivorship. Warming significantly decreased time to pupation, such that an increase of 1˚ C corresponded to a 0.5 day decrease in pupation time. In contrast, survivorship and pupal mass were not affected by warming. Our results indicate that climate warming will speed the developmental rate of monarchs, influencing their ecological and evolutionary dynamics. However, the effects of climate warming on larval development in other monarch populations and at different times of year should be investigated.

Author Comment

This is a submission to PeerJ for review.