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- Title
Portable heaters for microhabitat heating experiments.
- Authors
Baer, Christina S.; Dierick, Diego; Garcia‐Robledo, Carlos; Freckleton, Robert
- Abstract
Global warming will likely cause more ecological change by altering how species interact with each other than by directly affecting individual species. Field heating experiments are essential to test how warming will change species interactions. However, such experiments pose many logistical challenges, including heater construction and accuracy and accessing necessary infrastructure.To facilitate these experiments, we developed portable active heaters suitable for heating microhabitats and sites of species interactions. We validated heater performance using two different target microhabitats: rolled leaf refugia and aquatic microcosms.Using plastic mesh, resistive heating wire and an Arduino UNO microcontroller system with a custom shield, we built adjustable heaters that can dynamically heat small targets to at least 5°C above ambient temperature. Leaf target systems were heated with mean absolute errors (MAE) of 0.40–1.06°C. Water target systems were heated with MAE of 0.02–0.04°C.These heaters can be customized to accurately heat a wide range of target sites (leaves, flowers, nests, small pools of water, etc.), many of which cannot be easily heated with traditional heaters. They can be easily constructed and require less field site infrastructure than many active heaters. These heaters' adjustability and portability mean that they can help test the effects of global warming in many situations, particularly in remote and lightly developed areas.
- Subjects
HEATING; ECOLOGICAL niche; ARDUINO (Microcontroller); GLOBAL warming; HEATING equipment
- Publication
Methods in Ecology & Evolution, 2020, Vol 11, Issue 6, p727
- ISSN
2041-210X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/2041-210X.13391