First formally tested by Armand Marie Leroi, Albert Bennett, and Richard Lenski in 1994, it has however been a central assumption in historical physiological work that acclimation is adaptive.
Further refined by Raymond B. Huey and David Berrigan under the strong inference approach, the hypothesis has been falsified as a general rule by a series of multiple hypotheses experiments.
Acclimation is a set of physiological responses that occurs during an individual's lifetime to chronic laboratory-induced environmental conditions (in contrast to acclimatization).
"[2] This definition was further reworked in an article in American Zoologist 1999 by Raymond B. Huey, David Berrigan, George W. Gilchrist, and Jon C.
[3] They determined that, following Platt's strong inference approach, multiple competing hypotheses were needed to properly assess beneficial acclimation.
Development temperature does not affect adult fitness.The majority of tests of the beneficial adaptation hypothesis have, following Krogh's principle, centered on the model organisms Drosophila melanogaster and Escherichia coli.
[3] More specifically, experimental tests have centered on easily measured temperature adaptation (although other systems have been studied; see [3][4]).
[3] While it seems intuitive that acclimation would provide benefits to individuals, the majority of empirical tests of the hypothesis have rejected its general application.
Migration by adjacent populations may swamp out genes for adaptive acclimation.In response to continuing rejections of the beneficial acclimation hypothesis, a number of common criticisms of experimental tests have been developed:[3][5][6] 1.
For example, examining longevity as a fitness measure in D. melanogaster may be irrelevant since fertility declines rapidly with age in this species.The majority of studies have concluded the beneficial acclimation hypothesis is not true in all cases, and that alternate hypotheses should be tested.