A widespread thermodynamic effect, but maintenance of biological rates through space across life’s major domains

For over a century, the hypothesis of temperature compensation, the maintenance of similar biological rates in species from different thermal environments, has remained controversial. An alternative idea, that fitness is greater at higher temperatures (the thermodynamic effect), has gained increasing traction. This alternative hypothesis is also being used to understand large-scale biodiversity responses to environmental change. Yet evidence in favour of each of these contrasting hypotheses continues to emerge. In consequence, the fundamental nature of organismal thermal responses and its implications remain unresolved. Here we investigate these ideas explicitly using a global dataset of 619 observations of four categories of organismal performance, spanning 14 phyla and 403 species. In agreement with both hypotheses, we show a positive relationship between the temperature of maximal performance rate (Topt) and environmental temperature (Tenv) for all traits. Next we demonstrate that re...一个多世纪以来，温度补偿假说（temperature compensation hypothesis）——即不同热环境下的物种维持相似的生物学速率——始终存在争议。另一种观点认为，高温下物种适合度更高（即热力学效应，thermodynamic effect），该观点近年来获得了越来越多的支持。这一替代假说还被用于阐释生物多样性对环境变化的大尺度响应。然而，支持这两种对立假说的证据仍不断涌现。因此，生物体热响应的本质及其潜在意义尚未得到明确解答。本研究利用涵盖14个门、403个物种的4类生物体性能的619组观测数据构成的全球数据集，对上述假说进行了明确检验。研究结果同时支持两种假说：所有性能指标均显示，最大性能速率对应的温度（Topt）与环境温度（Tenv）之间存在正相关关系。随后我们证明了……