Night warming alters mean warming effects on predator-prey interactions by modifying predator demographics and interaction strengths

Temperatures are increasing globally, but this increase is not symmetrical: instead, nighttime minimum air temperatures increase faster than daytime maximum temperatures. However, we still know little about when and how this differential increase in maximum vs. minimum air temperatures affects ecological interactions between species. Understanding the connection between different types (night vs day) of warming and interspecific interactions is essential to predict the ecological consequences of climate change for natural ecosystems.

Here we used experiments in a common predator (lady beetle) - prey (aphid) system to examine how night warming, thermal regime (constant vs. fluctuating) and prey density influence demographic rates and per capita feeding rate and thus predation pressure. We mainly focused on the demographic variables and prey consumption as well as energy-related variables of the predators to understand how changes in nighttime temperature, temperature regime and prey d...