人们曾预测，生活在北半球中高纬度地区的生物受气候变暖的影响可能最大，因为那里的气温升高最快。但是现在，Michael Dillon及其同事将聚光灯转向了生活在热带的冷血动物（它们通过与其周围环境交换热量来调控其体温）。温度上升对一种生物的生物学并没有一个线性影响，人们所估计的由变暖诱导的热带冷血动物代谢速度的变化，被发现在幅度上大于或等于在温带所观察到的变化。
这项工作在局部和全球都可能有深远影响，因为热带是初级生产力的一个重要引擎，在全球生物多样性中占很大比例。（生物谷Bioon.com）
生物谷推荐英文摘要：
Nature doi:10.1038/nature09407
Global metabolic impacts of recent climate warming
Michael E. Dillon,George Wang& Raymond B. Huey
Documented shifts in geographical ranges1, 2, seasonal phenology3, 4, community interactions5, genetics3, 6 and extinctions7 have been attributed to recent global warming8, 9, 10. Many such biotic shifts have been detected at mid- to high latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere4, 9, 10—a latitudinal pattern that is expected4, 8, 10, 11 because warming is fastest in these regions8. In contrast, shifts in tropical regions are expected to be less marked4, 8, 10, 11 because warming is less pronounced there8. However, biotic impacts of warming are mediated through physiology, and metabolic rate, which is a fundamental measure of physiological activity and ecological impact, increases exponentially rather than linearly with temperature in ectotherms12. Therefore, tropical ectotherms (with warm baseline temperatures) should experience larger absolute shifts in metabolic rate than the magnitude of tropical temperature change itself would suggest, but the impact of climate warming on metabolic rate has never been quantified on a global scale. Here we show that estimated changes in terrestrial metabolic rates in the tropics are large, are equivalent in magnitude to those in the north temperate-zone regions, and are in fact far greater than those in the Arctic, even though tropical temperature change has been relatively small. Because of temperature’s nonlinear effects on metabolism, tropical organisms, which constitute much of Earth’s biodiversity, should be profoundly affected by recent and projected climate warming2, 13, 14.
