Developmental temperature induces consistent patterns of plasticity in lower, but not upper, critical thermal limits in threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus)

Developmental plasticity, where early-life environmental cues shape developmental trajectories with lasting impact into adulthood, may play an important role in determining how species respond to changing thermal environments. We used marine threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus) to investigate whether temperature experienced during embryonic development has persistent effects on critical thermal limits as adults. Egg clutches from six families of pure marine F2s were split across three developmental temperatures (12 °C, 15.5 °C, and 22 °C), transitioned to 15.5 °C once hatched, and reared to adulthood under common-garden conditions, before being assayed for critical thermal minimum (CTmin) and maximum (CTmax).

Developmental temperature was found to have significant, persistent effects on CTmin, where the direction of change tracked rearing temperature (i.e., CTmin decreased as early life temperature decreased). While the extent of change (i.e., slope of reaction norm) and inherent values (i.e., height of reaction norm) varied across families, all families shared the same trend. In contrast, the effect of developmental temperature on CTmax was minimal, with inconsistent patterns across families.

The ability of marine stickleback to lower their CTmin through developmental plasticity may help maintain phenotype-environment match under changing conditions; however, this will depend on congruence between early life and adult environments. The authors would like to acknowledge the staff and support from the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, the Life and Environmental Science Animal Research Centre at the University of Calgary, and the Rogers Lab. The project was funded by NSERC Discovery Program (RT735287).

Department of Biological Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre, Bamfield, BC, Canada Biology, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, Canada The authors declare no competing interests. Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.

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Stanford, B.C., Smith, S.J. & Rogers, S.M. Developmental temperature induces consistent patterns of plasticity in lower, but not upper, critical thermal limits in threespine stickleback (Gasterosteus aculeatus). Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-73463-1 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-73463-1