Contrasting effects of climate warming on hosts and parasitoids: Insights from Rocky Mountain aspen leaf miners and their parasitoids

Because temperature has pervasive effects on biological rates, climate warming may alter the outcomes of interactions between insect hosts and their parasitoids, which, for many host species, constitute the single largest source of mortality. Despite growing interest in parasitoid-host responses to climate change, there are few empirical tests of thermal tolerance differences between non-model lepidopteran hosts and their parasitoids and almost none from mountain ecosystems where warming is occurring more rapidly. We examined the thermal ecology of a host-parasitoid interaction in the Rocky Mountains using wild populations of the aspen leaf miner (Phyllocnistis populiella) and a set of previously unknown eulophid parasitoids that attack them. Host and parasitoid development rates were differentially sensitive to temperature. In addition, upper thermal limits of adult parasitoids were lower than those of host caterpillars, and in choice experiments, parasitoids reared at different temper..., , , # Data from: Contrasting effects of climate warming on hosts and parasitoids: Insights from Rocky Mountain aspen leaf miners and their parasitoids

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fqz612k3b](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.fqz612k3b)

## Description of the data and file structure

We measured the thermal tolerance traits of leaf mining caterpillars and their parasitoids. In particular, we measured the developmental rates for both types of insects as well as their LT50 (upper thermal limits). We also measured thermal preference (Tpref) for adult parasitoids that were reared at different temperatures. Finally, we integrated these experimentally determined trait data into a model to predict how the two interacting insects will respond to climate change-driven warming of leaf and air temperatures, and what differences in their responses mean for the fate of their interactions. 

### Files and variables

### 1) Physiological Trait Data

#### **File: LT50\_20C\_withID.csv**

**Description:** Con...