The analysis and interpretation of critical temperatures

Critical temperatures are widely used to quantify the upper and lower thermal limits of organisms. But measured critical temperatures often vary with methodological details, leading to spirited discussions about the potential consequences of stress and acclimation during the experiments. We review a model based on the simple assumption that failure rate increases with increasing temperature, independent of previous temperature exposure, water loss or metabolism during the experiment. The model predicts that mean critical thermal maximal temperatures (CTmax) increases nonlinearly with starting temperature and ramping rate, a pattern frequently observed in empirical studies. We then develop a statistical model that estimates a failure rate function (the relationship between failure rate and current temperature) using maximum likelihood; the best model accounts for 58% of the variation in CTmax in an exemplary dataset for tsetse flies. We then extend the model to incorporate potential ef...临界温度（critical temperatures）被广泛用于量化生物体的上下热耐受极限。但实测的临界温度往往会随实验方法细节的差异发生变化，由此引发了关于实验过程中胁迫与驯化潜在效应的热烈讨论。本研究综述了一个基于简单假设的模型：该模型假定失败率随温度升高而上升，且不受实验过程中先前温度暴露、水分流失或代谢水平的影响。该模型预测，平均临界高温（CTmax, critical thermal maximum）会随起始温度与升温速率呈非线性增长，这一规律在诸多实证研究中均有观测报道。随后，本研究构建了一个基于极大似然法（maximum likelihood）的统计模型，用于估算失败率函数（failure rate function，即失败率与当前温度之间的关联关系）；在采采蝇的示例数据集中，最优模型解释了58%的CTmax变异量。随后，本研究将进一步拓展该模型，以纳入潜在的……