Time course of acclimation of critical thermal limits in two springtail species (Collembola)

Abstract Critical thermal limits are one of the most important sources of information on the possible impacts of climate change on soil microarthropods. The extent of plasticity of tolerance limits can provide valuable insights about the likely responses of ectotherms to environmental change. Although many studies have investigated various aspects of the acclimatory response of thermal limits to temperature changes in arthropods, the number of studies focusing on the temporal dynamics of this plastic response is relatively small. Collembola, one of the key microarthropods groups in almost all soil ecosystems around the world, have been the focus of several thermal acclimation studies. Yet the time course of acclimation and its reversal have not been widely studied in this group. Here we investigated the time course of acclimation of critical thermal maxima (CTmax) and minima (CTmin) of two springtail species. We exposed a Cryptopygus species from temperate southern Australia to high and low temperature conditions and Mucrosomia caeca from Sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island to high temperature conditions. Upper thermal limits in both species were found to be highly constrained, as CTmax did not show substantial response to high and low temperature acclimation both in the Cryptopygus species and M. caeca, whereas CTmin showed significant responses to high and low temperature conditions. The acclimation begins to stabilize in approximately seven days in all treatments except for the acclimation of CTmin under high temperature conditions, where the pattern of change suggests that this acclimation might take longer to be completed. Although reversal of this acclimation also begins to stabilize under 7 days, re-acclimation was relatively slow as we did not observe a very clear settling point in 2 of the 3 re-acclimation treatments. The observed limits on the plasticity of CTmax indicate that both of these species may be very limited in their ability to respond plastically to short-term rapid changes in temperature (i.e temperature extremes).