Recent climate warming in North America has affected daily and winter low temperatures rather than summer and daily high temperatures. The result is milder winters and longer summers. Climate warming should therefore alleviate cold stress but disrupt patterns of seasonal activities. This research seeks to test whether climate warming affects the tolerance of increased heat or the timing of seasonal patterns of development, reproduction, hibernation, and migration among northern mosquitoes by performing a long-term selection experiment.
Knowledge of the responses of plants and animals to global climate change is important for conserving biodiversity, for predicting the spread of mosquitoes and other potential vectors of disease, and for evaluating the efficacy of planned introductions of predators and parasites for biocontrol. The term "global warming" implies that the major impact of climate change is on the level of heat stress that will be imposed on plants and animals, but global warming is proceeding faster a northern than at southern latitudes and will serve to alleviate cold stress more then it imposes heat stress. At the same time, climate warming may be on disrupting inherited patterns of seasonal development: organisms will cease reproduction and hibernate too early. This research will test the relative importance of temperature tolerance and the timing of seasonal activities on performance of temperate organisms.
