article · Journal of Experimental Biology
Insect success relies heavily on efficient water balance, yet existing models predicting insect responses to climate change frequently overlook water availability in favour of thermal vulnerability. Insects cope with dry environments by limiting water loss, replenishing and increasing their water reserves, and enduring dehydration. While the physiological mechanisms and variations behind these adaptations are largely known, water balance and temperature tolerance intersect significantly under hot conditions. During extended exposure to dry heat, dehydration rather than temperature alone often drives mortality, and the two factors can interact to dictate survival. Incorporating these dynamics requires identifying the specific threshold where the driver of mortality transitions between heat and dehydration. Measuring physiological traits, and potentially evaluating physiological or omic markers, offers a viable route to predicting these critical survival thresholds under changing environmental conditions.
Climate change alters both temperature and humidity, directly threatening insect populations that underpin vital ecosystems and agricultural systems. Current vulnerability forecasts may miscalculate risks by focusing solely on temperature. Understanding how dehydration and heat interact allows scientists to build more accurate predictive models, helping to anticipate biodiversity loss and shifts in pest or pollinator distributions under changing global conditions.
This early-stage conceptual research provides a framework for integrating water balance into ecological forecasting models. Potential end users include environmental modellers, conservation bodies, and agricultural risk assessors seeking more accurate forecasts of insect pest pressures or pollinator survival under climate change. Because the work outlines a theoretical framework and prospective marker identification rather than a ready tool, it remains distant from direct commercial application.
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Efficient water balance is key to insect success. However, the hygric environment is changing with climate change; although there are compelling models of thermal vulnerability, water balance is often neglected in predictions. Insects survive desiccating conditions by reducing water loss, increasing their total amount of water (and replenishing it) and increasing their tolerance of dehydration. The physiology underlying these traits is reasonably well understood, as are the sources of variation and phenotypic plasticity. However, water balance and thermal tolerance intersect at high temperatures, such that mortality is sometimes determined by dehydration, rather than heat (especially during long exposures in dry conditions). Furthermore, water balance and thermal tolerance sometimes interact to determine survival. In this Commentary, we propose identifying a threshold where the cause of mortality shifts between dehydration and temperature, and that it should be possible to predict this threshold from trait measurements (and perhaps eventually a priori from physiological or -omic markers).
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DOI: 10.1242/jeb.247167
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