LAUSR

Abstract Global mean temperature is increasing; however, when evaluated on a local scale, much of the documented warming is happening asymmetrically, with temperatures increasing either during the day or at night. Yet, most experimental studies increase temperatures constantly throughout a 24 h day, or disproportionally during the daytime, which could lead to a mismatch between evaluated and predicted warming. We conducted three experiments to evaluate how timing of warming (constant, day, or night) influences development, predation, and respiration rates of predators. Lady beetles were reared from egg to adulthood in one of four different temperature treatments. Next, we compared aphid consumption rates by adult lady beetles that were reared in different conditions. Finally, all individuals were exposed to a single similar temperature to evaluate respiration rates. Warming treatment affected many of the measured predator traits, including hatching success, development times, predation rates, and respiration rates, but the direction and magnitude of effects differed among traits measured. Our results demonstrate that the timing of warming has ecologically-relevant effects and that future studies should strive for more realistic warming treatments to increase their predictive power and reliability of results.