A sweeping study of tropical insects found that many species may struggle to survive rising global temperatures.
Scientists warn that heat stress could threaten vast numbers of insects in regions like the Amazon, potentially disrupting entire ecosystems.
Tropical Insects Face Growing Heat Threat From Climate Change
“Current evaluations of the heat tolerance of insects such as moths, flies, and beetles paint a differentiated – and at the same time alarming – picture,” says study author Dr. Kim Holzmann, a researcher at the Chair of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology at Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU).
The new research found that insects do not automatically adjust to hotter environments as temperatures rise. “While species at higher altitudes can increase their heat tolerance, at least in the short term, many lowland species largely lack this ability,” Holzmann explains.
Limited Ability To Adapt to Rising Temperatures
The study, published in Nature, shows that many tropical insects may have only a small capacity to adapt to climate change. Researchers warn that increasing temperatures could seriously affect insect populations, especially in tropical regions that contain some of the world’s richest biodiversity.
“Rising temperatures could have a massive impact on insect populations, especially in regions with the world’s highest biodiversity,” says Dr. Marcell Peters, an animal ecologist at the University of Bremen and coauthor of the study. “Since insects fulfill central functions in ecosystems as pollinators, decomposers, and predators, there is a threat of far-reaching consequences for entire ecosystems.”
Protein Stability May Limit Heat Tolerance
The scientists also found major differences in heat tolerance among insect groups. According to the team, these differences are connected to the structure and thermal stability of proteins.
“These properties are relatively conserved in the evolutionary family tree of insects and can only be changed to a limited extent,” Peters says. “The results suggest that fundamental characteristics of heat tolerance are deeply rooted in biology and cannot be quickly adapted to new climatic conditions.”
Researchers say the outlook for the Amazon is especially concerning. “If global ecosystems continue to warm unabated, expected future temperatures will lead to critical heat stress for up to half of the insect species there,” Holzmann says.
Scientists Studied More Than 2,000 Insect Species
Insects make up roughly 70 percent of all known animal species, and most of them live in tropical regions. Despite their importance, scientists still have limited information about how tropical insects respond to increasing heat.
One reason is the lack of experimental data on temperature tolerance, along with the limited amount of research available for many insect groups. The international research project was supported by funding from the German Research Foundation.
To carry out the study, scientists examined the heat tolerance limits of more than 2,000 insect species. Data was collected in 2022 and 2023 across different elevations in East Africa and South America, including cool mountain forests, tropical rainforests, and lowland savannas.
The researchers also analyzed the genomes of many species to investigate protein stability and better understand why some insects can withstand heat more effectively than others.
Reference: “Limited thermal tolerance in tropical insects and its genomic signature” by Kim L. Holzmann, Thomas Schmitzer, Antonia Abels, Marko Čorkalo, Oliver Mitesser, Mareike Kortmann, Pedro Alonso-Alonso, Yenny Correa-Carmona, Andrea Pinos, Felipe Yon, Mabel Alvarado, Adrian Forsyth, Alejandro Lopera-Toro, Gunnar Brehm, Alexander Keller, Mark Otieno, Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter and Marcell K. Peters, 4 March 2026, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10155-w
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