About

Joel Kingsolver is associated with the UNC Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His contact information includes an office at 123 W. Franklin Street, Suite #330B, Chapel Hill, NC 27516, with a phone number of 919-966-9922 and an email address at ie@unc.edu. The biography provided does not include specific details about his research focus, background, or key contributions.

Research topics

• Biology
• Ecology
• Zoology
• Physics
• Environmental resource management
• Geography
• Environmental science

Selected publications

• Rearing temperature and parasitoid load determine host and parasitoid performance in Manduca sexta and Cotesia congregata

  UNC Libraries · 2026-04-17

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  1. Temperature strongly influences the rates of physiological processes in insects, including the herbivore Manduca sexta and its larval endoparasitoid Cotesia congregata . Parasitisation by C. congregata decreases the growth and consumption of food by larval M. sexta . However, the effects of temperature on parasitised caterpillars and the developing wasp larvae are largely unknown. 2. In this study, parasitised and unparasitised caterpillars were reared at three constant temperatures (20, 25 and 30 °C) throughout larval development. Caterpillar mass gain and consumption were monitored daily until wandering (unparasitised control group) or wasp emergence (parasitised group) was observed. Development time and survival to emergence were measured as metrics of parasitoid performance. 3. Parasitised M. sexta developed more slowly than unparasitised controls, but had similar cumulative consumption until the terminal instar. Parasitised caterpillars with relatively large parasitoid loads had higher rates of consumption and growth than those with smaller loads. Both temperature and parasitoid load strongly affected wasp success. Mean development time to wasp emergence increased with low temperatures and with large loads. The combination of warm temperature and large parasitoid loads greatly reduced wasp survival. 4. These results demonstrate the interactive effects of rearing temperature and parasitisation on host consumption and growth rates throughout larval development. In addition, wasp performance was affected by the interaction of temperature and parasitoid load size. High temperatures alter the dynamics of the interaction between the parasitoid and its caterpillar host, which could have far‐reaching impacts as the global temperatures continue to rise.

  PublisherDOI

• Thermal mismatch in a host-parasitoid interaction is likely mediated by a viral symbiont

  2025-01-22

  preprintOpen access

  High temperature events can disrupt species interactions, resulting in ecological shifts as climate change continues. Current understanding of the molecular processes underlying these disruptions is lacking, especially in complex networks of multiple interacting species. Here we investigate the impact of a high temperature event on the transcriptomic and immunological interactions among an insect host, Manduca sexta, its insect parasitoid, Cotesia congregata, and the parasitoid’s symbiotic virus. High temperatures are lethal to developing parasitoids, but not hosts. Using parasitoid egg in vitro experiments, immunological assays, and RNAseq, we evaluated whether parasitoid mortality at high temperatures is associated with A) increased thermal sensitivity of parasitoid eggs, and/or B) altered functionality and expression of the parasitoid’s symbiotic virus inside the host. High temperatures did not significantly increase mortality of parasitoid eggs in vitro, suggesting that direct temperature effects are not sufficient for causing parasitoid mortality. In contrast, high temperatures disrupted viral suppression of the host insect’s immune responses. At the transcriptomic level, viral genes displayed patterns of expression dependent on their location on the viral circular genome: genes on viral circles not previously shown to integrate into host DNA showed reduced expression, with the opposite for circles that integrate. These results suggest that the genomic structure of the parasitoid’s symbiont may impose constraints on the parasitoid’s thermal tolerance, limiting the ecological functioning of a host-parasitoid system at high temperatures. This research provides a framework for understanding how molecular processes can contribute to ecological outcomes in complex species networks under high temperature events.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Evolution of Thermal Sensitivity in Changing and Variable Climates

  Carolina Digital Repository (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) · 2025-01-15 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Evolutionary adaptation to temperature and climate depends on both the extent to which organisms experience spatial and temporal environmental variation (exposure) and how responsive they are to the environmental variation (sensitivity). Theoretical models and experiments suggesting substantial potential for thermal adaptation have largely omitted realistic environmental variation. Environmental variation can drive fluctuations in selection that slow adaptive evolution. We review how carefully filtering environmental conditions based on how organisms experience their environment and further considering organismal sensitivity can improve predictions of thermal adaptation. We contrast taxa differing in exposure and sensitivity. Plasticity can increase the rate of evolutionary adaptation in taxa exposed to pronounced environmental variation. However, forms of plasticity that severely limit exposure, such as behavioral thermoregulation and phenological shifts, can hinder thermal adaptation. Despite examples of rapid thermal adaptation, experimental studies often reveal evolutionary constraints. Further investigating these constraints and issues of timescale and thermal history are needed to predict evolutionary adaptation and, consequently, population persistence in changing and variable environments.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Using museum specimens to track morphological shifts through climate change

  UNC Libraries · 2025-01-15

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Museum specimens offer a largely untapped resource for detecting morphological shifts in response to climate change. However, morphological shifts can be obscured by shifts in phenology or distribution or sampling biases. Additionally, interpreting phenotypic shifts requires distinguishing whether they result from plastic or genetic changes. Previous studies using collections have documented consistent historical size changes, but the limited studies of other morphological traits have often failed to support, or even test, hypotheses. We explore the potential of collections by investigating shifts in the functionally significant coloration of a montane butterfly, <em>Colias meadii,</em> over the past 60 years within three North American geographical regions. We find declines in ventral wing melanism, which correspond to reduced absorption of solar radiation and thus reduced risk of overheating, in two regions. However, contrary to expected responses to climate warming, we find melanism increases in the most thoroughly sampled region. Relationships among temperature, phenology and morphology vary across years and complicate the distinction between plastic and genetic responses. Differences in these relationships may account for the differing morphological shifts among regions. Our findings highlight the promise of using museum specimens to test mechanistic hypotheses for shifts in functional traits, which is essential for deciphering interacting responses to climate change.This article is part of the theme issue 'Biological collections for understanding biodiversity in the Anthropocene'.

  PublisherDOI

• Insect Development, Thermal Plasticity and Fitness Implications in Changing, Seasonal Environments

  UNC Libraries · 2025-01-15

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Historical data show that recent climate change has caused advances in seasonal timing (phenology) in many animals and plants, particularly in temperate and higher latitude regions. The population and fitness consequences of these phenological shifts for insects and other ectotherms have been heterogeneous: warming can increase development rates and the number of generations per year (increasing fitness), but can also lead to seasonal mismatches between animals and their resources and increase exposure to environmental variability (decreasing fitness). Insect populations exhibit local adaptation in their developmental responses to temperature, including lower developmental thresholds and the thermal requirements to complete development, but climate change can potentially disrupt seasonal timing of juvenile and adult stages and alter population fitness. We investigate these issues using a global dataset describing how insect developmental responds to temperature via two traits: lower temperature thresholds for development (T0) and the cumulative degree-days required to complete development (G). As suggested by previous analyses, T0 decreases and G increases with increasing (absolute) latitude; however, these traits and the relationship between G and latitude varies significantly among taxonomic orders. The mean number of generations per year (a metric of fitness) increases with both decreasing T0 and G, but the effects of these traits on fitness vary strongly with latitude, with stronger selection on both traits at higher (absolute) latitudes. We then use the traits to predict developmental timing and temperatures for multiple generations within seasons and across years (1970-2010). Seasonality drives developmental temperatures to peak mid-season and for generation lengths to decline across seasons, particularly in temperate regions. We predict that climate warming has advanced phenology and increased the number of generations, particularly at high latitudes. The magnitude of increases in developmental temperature varies little across latitude. Increases in the number of seasonal generations have been greatest for populations experiencing the greatest phenological advancements and warming. Shifts in developmental rate and timing due to climate change will have complex implications for selection and fitness in seasonal environments.

  PublisherDOI

• Evolution of plasticity and adaptive responses to climate change along climate gradients

  UNC Libraries · 2025-01-15 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  The relative contributions of phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution to the responses of species to recent and future climate change are poorly understood. We combine recent (1960-2010) climate and phenotypic data with microclimate, heat balance, demographic and evolutionary models to address this issue for a montane butterfly, <em>Colias eriphyle</em>, along an elevational gradient. Our focal phenotype, wing solar absorptivity, responds plastically to developmental (pupal) temperatures and plays a central role in thermoregulatory adaptation in adults. Here, we show that both the phenotypic and adaptive consequences of plasticity vary with elevation. Seasonal changes in weather generate seasonal variation in phenotypic selection on mean and plasticity of absorptivity, especially at lower elevations. In response to climate change in the past 60 years, our models predict evolutionary declines in mean absorptivity (but little change in plasticity) at high elevations, and evolutionary increases in plasticity (but little change in mean) at low elevation. The importance of plasticity depends on the magnitude of seasonal variation in climate relative to interannual variation. Our results suggest that selection and evolution of both trait means and plasticity can contribute to adaptive response to climate change in this system. They also illustrate how plasticity can facilitate rather than retard adaptive evolutionary responses to directional climate change in seasonal environments.

  PublisherDOI

• Different transcriptional responses to developmental versus short-term acclimation temperatures in <i>Pieris rapae</i>

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-11-12

  preprintOpen access

  ABSTRACT To anticipate the role of thermal plasticity in evolutionary responses to climate change, it is critical to identify the molecular processes which underlie responses to temperature across different timescales. However, existing transcriptomic studies largely focus on responses to acute thermal stress or do not manipulate temperature across multiple timescales. We used RNA-sequencing to measure gene expression of Pieris rapae larvae exposed to a full factorial combination of non-stressful high and low temperatures across a long-term developmental timescale and a short-term acclimation timescale. This study design allowed us to separate genes associated with developmental thermal plasticity versus short-term acclimation responses, respectively. We observed that few genes were differentially expressed in response to both developmental temperature and short-term acclimation temperature, though there were some functional similarities across the two gene sets. This result suggests that the expression of different genes underlies thermal plasticity acting on different timescales, and thus these responses may evolve independently. Genes responsive to developmental temperature include those related to hormone activity and cold acclimation, while short-term acclimation temperature affected the expression of several cuticle protein genes. Both developmental and short-term acclimation temperature treatments affected the expression of genes involved in detoxification and protein folding. Finally, we identified a small subset of genes for which expression levels were dependent on the interaction between developmental and short-term acclimation temperature treatments, providing possible mechanisms by which developmental temperature may affect an organism’s capacity for acclimation responses later in life.

  PublisherDOI

• Within‐ and Across‐Generational Effects of Temperature: Exposure of Manduca sexta Larvae to Heat Stress Impacts Future Reproduction and Offspring Development

  UNC Libraries · 2025-10-23

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The effects of temperature on reproduction and other key fitness traits are often primarily considered only for the adult thermal environment, but exposure to thermal stress during earlier life stages may carry over to influence adult traits within a generation or even across generations. In this study, we assessed how an acute heat shock event experienced at two different points in <em>Manduca sexta</em> larval development (early and late) impacted adult performance and fitness traits and whether thermal exposure of parents elicited plastic changes in offspring traits. Heat stress during late larval development had significantly greater negative impacts on adult performance and fitness compared to earlier exposure. Adults that experienced a late larval heat shock failed to produce any viable offspring due to complete elimination of egg hatching success. Larval heat stress during the parental generation also reduced larval development times of their offspring in both control and heat shock conditions. The results of this study illustrate the negative consequences of larval heat stress for adult fitness and indicate that the parental early thermal environment can significantly influence some traits in the next generation. The effects of parent environmental conditions during development, and not just at the adult stage, may therefore be an important but often overlooked factor when assessing cumulative fitness impacts across generations and predicting the vulnerability of populations to climate change.

  PublisherDOI

• Functional resurveys and models reveal the interplay of plasticity and evolution of Pierid butterflies in response to recent climate change

  bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) · 2025-09-25 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract The extent of contemporary evolution, which is mediated by interactions with plasticity, will be an important determinant of biological responses to climate change. We synthesize two functional resurvey projects that, coupled with mechanistic models, evaluate the interplay of plasticity and evolution of Pierid butterfly larval (thermal sensitivity of feeding) and adult (wing melanization) traits over recent decades. We characterize thermal environments over the resurvey periods, which we interface with developmental and (historical, current, and hypothetical) thermal sensitivity traits to examine the implications of evolutionary changes. We find that the evolution of photoperiod-cued plasticity of wing melanization in California Colias is consistent with avoiding thermal stress during warming springs. Plasticity has not evolved for Colorado Colias populations, which have experienced stronger increases in climate means relative to extremes in recent decades. Evolution in Colorado Colias larvae has improved tolerance to warm extremes, whereas evolution in California Colias larvae has broadened thermal sensitivity consistent with capitalizing on expanded seasonal thermal opportunity. Our models predict that Washington Pieris larvae have experienced shifts in the direction of selection to increase performance at warm temperatures. The research highlights the importance of evaluating changes in climate change exposure and sensitivity to understand interacting organismal responses.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Within‐ and Across‐Generational Effects of Temperature: Exposure of <i>Manduca sexta</i> Larvae to Heat Stress Impacts Future Reproduction and Offspring Development

  Ecology and Evolution · 2025-10-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  ABSTRACT The effects of temperature on reproduction and other key fitness traits are often primarily considered only for the adult thermal environment, but exposure to thermal stress during earlier life stages may carry over to influence adult traits within a generation or even across generations. In this study, we assessed how an acute heat shock event experienced at two different points in Manduca sexta larval development (early and late) impacted adult performance and fitness traits and whether thermal exposure of parents elicited plastic changes in offspring traits. Heat stress during late larval development had significantly greater negative impacts on adult performance and fitness compared to earlier exposure. Adults that experienced a late larval heat shock failed to produce any viable offspring due to complete elimination of egg hatching success. Larval heat stress during the parental generation also reduced larval development times of their offspring in both control and heat shock conditions. The results of this study illustrate the negative consequences of larval heat stress for adult fitness and indicate that the parental early thermal environment can significantly influence some traits in the next generation. The effects of parent environmental conditions during development, and not just at the adult stage, may therefore be an important but often overlooked factor when assessing cumulative fitness impacts across generations and predicting the vulnerability of populations to climate change.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Deconstructing the temperature-size rule: an integration of mechanistic and selection analyses

  NSF · $507k · 2011–2017

• Thermoregulation, Predation, and Wing Pigmentation Patterns in Pieris Butterflies (Lepidoptera: Pieridae)

  NSF · $118k · 1984–1986

• Experimental Analyses of Body Morphology, Flight and Survival in Pierine Butterflies

  NSF · $280k · 1995–2000

• Function and Phenotypic Variation of Wing Melanization in Pieris

  NSF · $203k · 1987–1989

• Function and Phenotypic Variation of Wing Melanization in Pieris

  NSF · $21k · 1986–1987

Frequent coauthors

• Nancy Heckman

  39 shared

• John R. Stinchcombe

  University of Toronto

  38 shared

• Mark Kirkpatrick

  The University of Texas at Austin

  37 shared

• Johanna Schmitt

  University of California, Davis

  37 shared

• Lauren B. Buckley

  University of Washington

  36 shared

• Sarah E. Diamond

  Case Western Reserve University

  26 shared

• Heidi J. MacLean

  Aarhus University

  19 shared

• Diane C. Wiernasz

  University of Houston

  15 shared