TY - JOUR
T1 - Metabolic and functional characterization of developmental temperature in Drosophila melanogaster
AU - Schou, Mads Fristrup
AU - Kristensen, Torsten Nygård
AU - Pedersen, Anders
AU - Karlsson, Göran
AU - Loeschcke, Volker
AU - Malmendal, Anders
PY - 2017
Y1 - 2017
N2 - The ability of ectotherms to respond to changes in their thermal environment through plastic mechanisms is central to their adaptive capability. However, we still lack knowledge on the physiological and functional responses by which ectotherms acclimate to temperatures during development, and in particular, how physiological stress at extreme temperatures may counteract beneficial acclimation responses at benign temperatures. We exposed Drosophila melanogaster to 10 developmental temperatures covering their entire permissible temperature range. We obtained metabolic profiles and reaction norms for several functional traits: egg-to-adult viability, developmental time, and heat and cold tolerance. Females were more heat tolerant than males, whereas no sexual dimorphism was found in cold tolerance. A group of metabolites, mainly free amino acids, had linear reaction norms. Several energy-carrying molecules, as well as some sugars, showed distinct inverted U-shaped norms of reaction across the thermal range, resulting in a positive correlation between metabolite intensities and egg-to-adult viability. At extreme temperatures, low levels of these metabolites were interpreted as a response characteristic of costs of homeostatic perturbations. Our results provide novel insights into a range of metabolites reported to be central for the acclimation response and suggest several new candidate metabolites. Low and high temperatures result in different adaptive physiological responses, but they also have commonalities likely to be a result of the failure to compensate for the physiological stress. We suggest that the regulation of metabolites that are tightly connected to the performance curve is important for the ability of ectotherms to cope with variation in temperature.
AB - The ability of ectotherms to respond to changes in their thermal environment through plastic mechanisms is central to their adaptive capability. However, we still lack knowledge on the physiological and functional responses by which ectotherms acclimate to temperatures during development, and in particular, how physiological stress at extreme temperatures may counteract beneficial acclimation responses at benign temperatures. We exposed Drosophila melanogaster to 10 developmental temperatures covering their entire permissible temperature range. We obtained metabolic profiles and reaction norms for several functional traits: egg-to-adult viability, developmental time, and heat and cold tolerance. Females were more heat tolerant than males, whereas no sexual dimorphism was found in cold tolerance. A group of metabolites, mainly free amino acids, had linear reaction norms. Several energy-carrying molecules, as well as some sugars, showed distinct inverted U-shaped norms of reaction across the thermal range, resulting in a positive correlation between metabolite intensities and egg-to-adult viability. At extreme temperatures, low levels of these metabolites were interpreted as a response characteristic of costs of homeostatic perturbations. Our results provide novel insights into a range of metabolites reported to be central for the acclimation response and suggest several new candidate metabolites. Low and high temperatures result in different adaptive physiological responses, but they also have commonalities likely to be a result of the failure to compensate for the physiological stress. We suggest that the regulation of metabolites that are tightly connected to the performance curve is important for the ability of ectotherms to cope with variation in temperature.
KW - Developmental acclimation
KW - Environmental stress
KW - Extreme temperatures
KW - Nuclear magnetic resonance metabolomics
KW - Plastic responses
KW - Sexual dimorphism
KW - Thermal performance curve
KW - Thermal resistance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85011416544&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1152/ajpregu.00268.2016
DO - 10.1152/ajpregu.00268.2016
M3 - Journal article
C2 - 27927623
SN - 0363-6119
VL - 312
SP - R211-R222
JO - American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology
JF - American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology
IS - 2
ER -