Adaptations of different ectothermic animals to global climate changes

The article analyzes data on the thermobiological characteristics of activity and thermal endurance in invertebrates and vertebrates, the relationship between these groups of indicators and their possible significance in adapting to global climate changes. In animals that poorly regulate body temperature (many invertebrates, especially inactive and sedentary ones, and lower chordates), the thermobiological characteristics of activity and the thermoresistance of cells, tissues, or the whole organisms are very closely related to the environmental temperature conditions. Such animals have no alternative to find themselves in conditions with changing temperatures. And in order to survive, they adapt to them by biochemical or physiological means. In free-moving animals, which actively regulate body temperature through behavioral reactions, and so more or less successfully keep it within physiologically necessary limits (many insects, vertebrates – some amphibians, all reptiles and warm-blooded animals), the thermobiological characteristics of activity are much weaker related to the thermal characteristics of the environment, because behavioral regulatory mechanisms neutralize the interaction between them. Due to various mechanisms of modification of the spatiotemporal structure of activity, these animals can effectively maintain the fairly narrow parameters of thermal homeostasis in a very wide range of external temperature conditions. In such animals, even global climate changes can have an ambiguous effect on their adaptive capabilities. Thus, the problem of the influence of global warming has no simple solution, since many physiological properties and reactions of various organisms related to temperature do not always carry an unambiguous adaptive load. To solve these problems, we can formulate some important questions. How can natural selection eliminate less thermophilic reptile species during the climate warming, if they neutralize the effect of thermal conditions on the body temperature by a variety of behavioral reactions, effectively maintaining the characteristics of thermal homeostasis in a wide range of external conditions? Do such seemingly important properties as thermobiological activity characteristics and thermal resistance have any significance in adapting to climate warming for animals with well-developed behavioral thermoregulation? And if it is important to them, for what reasons, and how it can work? The answers to these questions have yet to be found.