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The point of no return for species facing heatwaves

A climate-driven rise in exposure to extreme temperatures will hasten mortality. To predict such losses, we need to know how quickly organisms succumb to stressful temperatures. A study shows how heat-failure rates vary across species.
  1. Susana Clusella-Trullas

    1. Susana Clusella-Trullas is in the Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch 7600, South Africa.

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Heatwaves associated with climate warming are predicted to continue to increase in frequency and intensity this century1. These events have already caused catastrophic population declines and the reorganization of biological communities in certain places2. Understanding how quickly, and to what extent, temperature extremes will have consequences for organisms is pivotal to predicting the effects of future climate warming. Writing in Nature, Jørgensen et al.3 look at the rate at which biological functions vary with survivable changes in temperature and compare that with the rate at which death occurs at extreme (stressful) temperatures. Their analysis reveals that, at stressful temperatures, even a small temperature rise will quickly result in strikingly negative effects on the survival of organisms.

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Nature 611, 39-40 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-03365-5

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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