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Thermal variability is a key driver of ecological processes, affecting
organisms and populations across multiple temporal scales. Despite the
ubiquity of variation, biologists lack a quantitative synthesis of the
observed ecological consequences of thermal variability across a wide
range of taxa, phenotypic traits, and experimental designs. Here, we
conduct a meta-analysis to investigate how properties of organisms, their
experienced thermal regime, and whether thermal variability is experienced
in either the past (prior to an assay) or present (during the assay)
affect performance, relative to the performance of organisms experiencing
constant thermal environments. Our results – which draw upon 1,712 effect
sizes from 75 studies – indicate that the effects of thermal variability
are not unidirectional and become more negative as mean temperature and
fluctuation range increase. Exposure to variation in the past decreases
performance to a greater extent than variation experienced in the present
and increases the costs to performance more than diminishing benefits
across a broad set of empirical studies. Further, we identify life history
attributes that predictably modify the ecological response to variation.
Our findings demonstrate that effects of thermal variability on
performance are context-dependent, yet negative outcomes may be heightened
in warmer, more variable climates.
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