Thermal preference plasticity in ectotherms: Integrating temperature affinity and thermoregulation precision

#### Publication title: Thermal preference plasticity in ectotherms: integrating temperature affinity and thermoregulation precision

#### Publication authors: Gwenaëlle Deconninck, Nicolas Meyer, Hervé Colinet, Sylvain Pincebourde

#### Code author: Gwenaëlle Deconninck 

#### Last Update: January 2025

This repository houses the code (‘Rcode_Tp_framework’.R) and data sets that were used for the article ‘Thermal preference plasticity in ectotherms: integrating temperature affinity and thermoregulation precision’.

ABSTRACT

Thermal preference (Tp) prevents ectotherms from encountering sublethal temperatures. Its plasticity likely modulates the importance of behavioral thermoregulation under changing conditions. While it has been widely recognized that the plasticity of Tp varies across ontogeny, the plasticity of this trait across life stages is poorly understood. We propose a novel conceptual framework relating two plastic components of Tp: its mean, which indicates temperature affinity, and its variance, which informs on the precision of behavioral thermoregulation. We tested this framework by measuring Tp variations across life stages of an insect model after several generations under contrasting developmental temperatures. Tp plastic responses differed among life stages. Generally, we obtained a bell-shape relationship between temperature affinity and precision of thermoregulation, indicating a strategy to avoid suboptimal and supra-optimal temperature extremes in D. melanogaster, but not in all life stages. We highlight the need to change the paradigm underlying the study of Tp beyond the simple use of mean or median.

R session info:

- R version 4.1.2 (2021-11-01)

- Platform: x86_64-apple-darwin17.0 (64-bit)

- Running under: macOS 13.1

Metadata for the data files are supplied below:

File ‘ad_ttes_generations.txt’ (contains all data for adults):

- name: id summarising main infos for Drosophila melanogaster individuals

- sexe: M/F for males/females

- age: V/F for virgin young flies (2 days) / mature flies (12 days)

- traitement: Rearing temperature in °C: 22, 25, 28, 23.5-26.5, 22-28 

- generation: G1: Generation 1, G3: Generation 3

- rampe: Gradient lane from A to F

- Tp: Thermal preference (°C)

File ‘L3_ttes_generations.txt’ (contains all data for larvae):

- stade: L3: larval stage 3; L3W: wandering larvae

- traitement: Rearing temperature in °C: 22, 25, 28, 23.5-26.5, 22-28 

- generation: G1: Generation 1, G3: Generation 3

- rampe: Gradient lane from A to F

- Tp: Thermal preference (°C)

For any inquiries or bugs, please contact corresponding author Gwenaëlle Deconninck ([e-mail]).