Transgenerational plasticity and climate change: phenotypic responses across ectothermic animals

Using organismal-level data to predict population-level responses to climate change is a common, yet complicated challenge. Studies concerned with estimating the costs of living in warmer environments use designs that are often unable to quantitatively link their results to population persistence. Because of the reliance of ectotherms on environmental temperature to regulate metabolism and behavior, most aspects of their reproduction and survival are temperature sensitive. Consequently, relationships between the environment that parents experience during reproduction, the environment offspring experience during development, and interactions across generations can help us link changes in fitness-relevant phenotypes directly to population growth and recruitment. To that end, some experiments use multi-generational study designs to describe the effects of warming on current and future generations. These experiments provide more detail and accuracy on population-level responses to climate change than those that examine responses within a single generation, and we stand to learn much from the continued use and development of multi-generational experiments to describe responses to climate change. In this Review, we examine the multi-generational effects of climate change on ectothermic animals, focusing on the ecophysiological consequences of warming, and the evidence for transgenerational phenotypic plasticity. In addition to reviewing the breadth of transgenerational climate change studies, we highlight some persistent gaps that future work could be well poised to address.