Climate change, particularly global warming, is disturbing biological processes in unexpected ways and forcing us to re-study/reanalyze the effects of varying temperatures, among them extreme ones, on insect functional traits such as lifespan and fecundity/fertility. Here we experimentally tested, under both laboratory and field conditions, the effects of an extreme range of temperatures (5, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, and 45 °C, and the naturally varying conditions experienced in the field), on survivorship/lifespan, fecundity, and fertility of four pestiferous fruit fly species exhibiting contrasting life histories and belonging to two phylogenetic groups within the genus Anastrepha: A. ludens, A. obliqua, A. striata, and A. serpentina. In the field, we also measured the length of the entire life cycle (egg to adult), and in one species (A. ludens), the effect on the latter of the host plant (mango and grapefruit). Under laboratory conditions, none of the adults, independent of species, could survive a single day when exposed to a constant temperature of 45 °C, but A. striata and A. serpentina females/males survived at the highly contrasting temperatures of 5 and 40 °C at least 7 days. Maximum longevity was achieved in all species at 15 °C (375, 225, 175 and 160 days in A. ludens, A. serpentina, A. striata and A. obliqua females, respectively). Anastrepha ludens layed many eggs until late in life (368 days) at 15 °C, but none eclosed. Eclosion was only observed in all species at 20 and 30 °C. Under natural conditions, flies lived ca. 100 days less than in the laboratory at 15 °C, likely due to the physiological cost of dealing with the highly varying environmental patterns over 24 h (minimum and maximum temperatures and relative humidity of ca. 10-40 °C, and 22-100%, respectively). In the case of A. ludens, the immature\'s developmental time was shorter in mango, but adult survival was longer than in grapefruit. We discuss our results considering the physiological processes regulating the traits measured and tie them to the increasing problem of global warming and its hidden effects on the physiology of insects, as well as the ecological and pest management implications.

Eotetranychus kankitus (Acari: Tetranychidae) is an important pest of citrus. Assessing life history parameters is crucial to developing an ecologically sound pest management program. Of the many factors that affect life history parameters of herbivorous insects and mites, temperature has the greatest influence on development rate and reproductive potential. We investigated the effects of temperatures from 15 to 40 °C on the demographic parameters of E. kankitus under a long-day (16:8 (L:D) h) photoperiod. The egg-to-adult development time of E. kankitus decreased as the temperature increased from 15 to 32.5 °C. At 35 °C, the female laid eggs that died at the larval stage. The estimated lower thermal thresholds (t0) were 11.01 and 10.48 °C, and the thermal constants (K) were 190.67 and 188.63 degree-days for egg-to-adult females and egg-to-adult males, respectively. The intrinsic optimal temperatures (TØ) for development were 21.79 and 21.74 °C, respectively. The bootstrap-match technique was used in the construction of the life table paramaters. The net reproductive rate (R0) decreased as temperature increased from 20 to 30 °C, but the lowest rate was observed at 15 °C. The intrinsic rate of natural increase (r) increased from 0.0299 day-1 at 15 °C to 0.1822 day-1 at 30 °C. These findings provide a critical theoretical basis for predicting the occurrence of E. kankitus populations under climate warming and for developing appropriate control strategies.

OBJECTIVE: Cutaneous allodynia (CA) is a common symptom in migraine. Its incidence is more frequent in the chronic migraine (CM). CA usually occurs during pain attacks. However, it can also be interictal and its frequency and severity seem to be correlated with the duration of the disease. Several quantitative sensory testing (QST) studies have revealed variable results about mechanical and thermal allodynia accompanying migraine. This study aimed to investigate the effects of CA and onabotulinumtoxinA (BoNT-A) injection on the thermal thresholds measured by QST in patients with CM. The effects of BoNT-A on headaches, CA, and other accompanying symptoms of migraine were also evaluated.
METHODS: Single BoNT-A injections were performed in 22 female cases (mean age: 38.1 ± 7.2 years) with CM. Patients were evaluated at 1-7 days before, 28-35, and 84-91 days after the injection. The 22 healthy women in the control group (mean age: 36.6 ± 7.6 years) were examined once. Headache and its characteristics, medication intake, allodynia, presence of anxiety, and depression symptoms were evaluated through relevant scales. The heat (HDT) and cold (CDT) detection thresholds on the forehead and hand were measured bilaterally with QST. The presence of brush allodynia for patients was examined by applying a 4 × 4 gauze pad over the same areas.
RESULTS: The patients in the CM group had migraine for an average of 22.5 ± 6.1 years and CM for 6.1 ± 3.2 years. The average number of painful days per month was 22.1 ± 4.0 days. All the patients had migraine attacks with CA (mean 5.6/month). The average allodynia symptom checklist (ASC-12) score was 7.8 ± 6.2. Thermal thresholds measured in the patients with CM were similar to those of the controls. Thermal thresholds did not show significant differences between the symptomatic and the asymptomatic sides at the last migraine attack. There was also no correlation between the allodynia revealed by the physical examination and the thermal thresholds detected by QST. The ASC-12 score decreased significantly with BoNT-A injection (p = 0.030), but no significant change was observed in thermal thresholds after this treatment.
CONCLUSIONS: There was no significant correlation between CA and thermal thresholds. BoNT-A was successful in relieving headache and other associated symptoms, including CA, but had no significant effect on QST parameters.

The frequency, intensity, and spatial scale of climate extremes are changing rapidly due to anthropogenic global warming.1,2 A growing research challenge is to understand how multiple climate-driven disturbances interact with each other over multi-decadal time frames, generating combined effects that cannot be predicted from single events alone.3-5 Here we examine the emergent dynamics of five coral bleaching events along the 2,300 km length of the Great Barrier Reef that affected >98% of the Reef between 1998 and 2020. We show that the bleaching responses of corals to a given level of heat exposure differed in each event and were strongly influenced by contingency and the spatial overlap and strength of interactions between events. Naive regions that escaped bleaching for a decade or longer were the most susceptible to bouts of heat exposure. Conversely, when pairs of successive bleaching episodes were close together (1-3 years apart), the thermal threshold for severe bleaching increased because the earlier event hardened regions of the Great Barrier Reef to further impacts. In the near future, the biological responses to recurrent bleaching events may become stronger as the cumulative geographic footprint expands further, potentially impairing the stock-recruitment relationships among lightly and severely bleached reefs with diverse recent histories. Understanding the emergent properties and collective dynamics of recurrent disturbances will be critical for predicting spatial refuges and cumulative ecological responses, and for managing the longer-term impacts of anthropogenic climate change on ecosystems.

OBJECTIVE: Quantitative thermal testing (QTT) is a psychophysical assessment method of small nerve fibers that relies on reference material to assess function. Normal limits for within-subject comparisons of thermal thresholds are scarce, and their association with age, height and sex is not fully elucidated. The aim of this study was to investigate the normal limits for distal-proximal- and contralateral homologous comparisons of thermal thresholds with QTT, and their association with age, sex or height.
METHODS: Fifty healthy volunteers ages 20-79 participated in the experiment. Cold detection thresholds (CDT), warm detection thresholds (WDT), heat pain thresholds (HPT), and cold pain thresholds (CPT) were measured bilaterally at the thenar eminence, anterior thigh, distal medial leg and foot dorsum. Sample normal limits were calculated as (mean) ± 2 SD.
RESULTS: Forty-eight subjects were included in the analysis. CPT was excluded from all analyses due to a large floor-effect. Sample normal limits for side-differences ranged from 1.8 to 7.2 °C for CDT, 2.4-6.8 °C for WDT and 3.2-4.0 °C for HPT, depending on anatomical site. For distal-proximal comparisons, sample normal limits ranged from 4.0 to 8.7 °C for CDT, 6.0-14.0 °C for WDT and 4.2-9.0 °C for HPT, depending on the pairs compared. Age was associated with side-differences for CDT in the thenar eminences (p < 0.001) and distal medial legs (p < 0.002), and with 11 of 18 distal-proximal comparisons (p < 0.01).
CONCLUSIONS: The normal limits for distal-proximal- and contralateral homologous thermal thresholds were wide, and thus of limited use in a clinical setting, although the reported values may be somewhat inflated by low sample-size and consequent age-pooling. Age, but not sex or height, was associated with contralateral differences in CDT in the thenar eminences and distal medial legs, and with most distal-proximal differences.
CONCLUSIONS: Due to wide normal limits, we advise caution when utilizing relative comparisons of thermal thresholds for diagnostic purposes.

Skin as the largest organ of the human body accomplishes many important functions, including thermoregulation. In this context, investigating cold (CDT) and warmth detection thresholds (WDT) constitutes an important research branch, and investigating thermal thresholds has a significant impact on the clothing and fabric textile industry. In this regard, not only the extremities, but also torso regions are of high relevance. However, only few examinations have conducted detailed mapping studies of the human torso. Additionally, some of these studies show certain methodological limitations. Furthermore, the issue of whether cutaneous thermal sensitivity is gender-dependent is still controversial. Therefore, the present study investigated the cutaneous thermal sensitivity (CDT, WDT) of 42 male and female young and healthy subjects. Measurements were taken at 11 anatomical regions. We found that gender plays an important role when investigating thermal thresholds: Females tended to be more sensitive than males. We also found considerable differences between the tested regions, even within the anterior torso, for example. We identified locations which were constantly sensitive (lower back), while others were consistently insensitive (e.g. scapula). We also detected greater data variability for males compared to females, and for WDT compared to CDT. Furthermore, mainly for WDT, we found a proximal-to-distal increase of thermal torso and upper arm sensitivity. In line with previous investigations, our subjects were more sensitive to cold than to warmth. The findings of this study have important implications. First, our data may complement basic research, e.g. in terms of reference data of body regional maps. Second, our data provides important insights that could be leveraged in the textile industry, and also used to optimize current broadly applicable test methods and tools, like thermal manikins and thermophysiological models.

Temperature is widely known to influence the spatio-temporal dynamics of vector-borne disease transmission, particularly as temperatures vary across critical thermal thresholds. When temperature conditions exhibit such \'transcritical variation\', abrupt spatial or temporal discontinuities may result, generating sharp geographical or seasonal boundaries in transmission. Here, we develop a spatio-temporal machine learning algorithm to examine the implications of transcritical variation for West Nile virus (WNV) transmission in the Los Angeles metropolitan area (LA). Analysing a large vector and WNV surveillance dataset spanning 2006-2016, we found that mean temperatures in the previous month strongly predicted the probability of WNV presence in pools of Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes, forming distinctive inhibitory (10.0-21.0°C) and favourable (22.7-30.2°C) mean temperature ranges that bound a narrow 1.7°C transitional zone (21-22.7°C). Temperatures during the most intense months of WNV transmission (August/September) were more strongly associated with infection probability in Cx. quinquefasciatus pools in coastal LA, where temperature variation more frequently traversed the narrow transitional temperature range compared to warmer inland locations. This contributed to a pronounced expansion in the geographical distribution of human cases near the coast during warmer-than-average periods. Our findings suggest that transcritical variation may influence the sensitivity of transmission to climate warming, and that especially vulnerable locations may occur where present climatic fluctuations traverse critical temperature thresholds.

Marine heatwaves (MHWs) are emerging as forceful agents of ecosystem change and are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity with climate change. During MHWs, physiological thresholds of native species may be exceeded while the performance of invasive species with warm affinities may be enhanced. As a consequence, MHWs could significantly alter an ecosystem\'s invasive dynamics, but such interactions are poorly understood. Following a 10-d acclimation period, we investigated the physiological resistance and resilience of an intertidal rock pool assemblage invaded by the seaweed Sargassum muticum to realistic 14-d marine heatwave scenarios (+1.5°C, +2.0°C, +3.5°C) followed by a 14-d recovery period. We conducted mesocosm experiments in both summer and winter to investigate temporal variability of MHWs. MHW treatments had clear negative impacts on native seaweeds (Fucus serratus and Chondrus crispus) while enhancing the performance of S. muticum. This pattern was consistent across season indicating that acclimation to cooler ambient temperatures results in winter MHWs having significant impacts on native species. As climate warming advances, this may ultimately lead to changes in competitive interactions and potentially exclusion of native species, while invasive species may proliferate and become more conspicuous within temperate rocky shore environments.

Background: The specific serotonin type 3 (5-HT3)-receptor antagonist granisetron effectively reduces clinical as well as experimental muscle pain and hyperalgesia and with a duration that exceeds that of lidocaine. Hence, it may be an alternative to lidocaine as a local anesthetic. There are also some indications that granisetron in addition to 5-HT3 receptors blocks sodium channels. Thus, the local anesthetic effect by granisetron may resemble that of lidocaine, but this has not been tested. The aim of this study was therefore to compare the effect granisetron has on facial skin sensitivity to the effect of lidocaine and isotonic saline. Methods: This was a randomized, controlled, and double-blind study, in which 1 ml of either granisetron (test-substance), lidocaine (positive control), or isotonic saline (negative control) was injected into the skin over the masseter muscle at three different occasions in 18 healthy males (27.2 ± 5.8 years old). Skin detection thresholds and pain thresholds for thermal stimuli as well as mechanical detection thresholds and sensitivity to a painful mechanical (pinprick) stimulus were assessed before (baseline) and 5, 20, 40, and 60 min after injection. The quality and area of subjective sensory change over the cheek were assessed 20 min after injection. Results: All substances increased the mechanical detection threshold (granisetron: p = 0.011; lidocaine: p = 0.016; saline: p = 0.031). Both granisetron and lidocaine, but not isotonic saline, increased the heat detection thresholds (p < 0.001 and p < 0.02, respectively), but not the cold detection thresholds. Granisetron and lidocaine also reduced pinprick pain (p = 0.001 for each comparison). There were no significant differences between granisetron and lidocaine for any of these variables. There was no effect on thermal pain thresholds for any substance. Conclusion: The similar analgesic patterns on mechanical sensory and pain thresholds as well as thermal sensory thresholds over the facial skin by subcutaneous injection of granisetron and lidocaine shown in this study and the absence of paresthesia, in combination with the reduced pain intensity and pressure pain sensitivity shown in previous studies, indicate that granisetron might be a novel candidate as a local anesthetic.

An insect\'s ability to tolerate winter conditions is a critical determinant of its success. This is true for both native and invasive species, and especially so in harsh polar environments. The midge Eretmoptera murphyi (Diptera, Chironomidae) is invasive to maritime Antarctic Signy Island, and the ability of fourth instar larvae to tolerate freezing is hypothesized to allow the species to extend its range further south. However, no detailed assessment of stress tolerance in any other life stage has yet been conducted. Here, we report that, although larvae, pupae and adults all have supercooling points (SCPs) of around -5 °C, only the larvae are freeze-tolerant, and that cold-hardiness increases with larval maturity. Eggs are freeze-avoiding and have an SCP of around -17 °C. At -3.34 °C, the CTmin activity thresholds of adults are close to their SCP of -5 °C, and they are likely chill-susceptible. Larvae could not withstand the anoxic conditions of ice entrapment or submergence in water beyond 28 d. The data obtained here indicate that the cold-tolerance characteristics of this invasive midge would permit it to colonize areas further south, including much of the western coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.