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Simple Summary: During overwintering diapause, the gynes of paper wasps (Polistes sp.) are mainly dormant in sheltered hibernacles, protecting them against predators and adverse weather conditions but hardly against low temperatures. By measuring the temperature inside hibernacles occupied by species from both Mediterranean (Italian; P. dominula, P. gallicus) and temperate (Austrian; P. dominula) climates (mean hibernacle temperatures: 8.5 °C and 3.2 °C, respectively), we were able to calculate the energetic demand of overwintering. The cumulative energetic costs differed between the populations. Costs were lowest for the P. dominula population from the cooler Austrian winter climate and significantly higher in P. dominula and P. gallicus from the warmer Italian climate. The lower costs of the temperate species were a result of the lower winter temperature and physiological acclimation processes. Energetic calculations with an assumed temperature increase of up to 3 °C due to climate change predict a dramatic increase of up to 40% in overwintering costs in all species. Gynes of paper wasps (Polistes sp.) spend the cold season in sheltered hibernacles. These hibernacles protect against predators and adverse weather conditions but offer only limited protection against low temperatures. During overwintering diapause, wasps live on the energy they store. We investigated the hibernacles' microclimate conditions of species from the Mediterranean (Italy, P. dominula, P. gallicus) and temperate (Austria, P. dominula) climates in order to describe the environmental conditions and calculate the energetic demand of overwintering according to standard metabolic rate functions. The temperatures at the hibernacles differed significantly between the Mediterranean and temperate habitats (average in Austria: 3.2 ± 5.71 °C, in Italy: 8.5 ± 5.29 °C). In both habitats, the hibernacle temperatures showed variance, but the mean hibernacle temperature corresponded closely to the meteorological climate data. Cumulative mass-specific energetic costs over the studied period were the lowest for the temperate P. dominula population compared with both Mediterranean species. The lower costs of the temperate species were a result of the lower hibernacle temperature and acclimation to lower environmental temperatures. Model calculations with an increased mean temperature of up to 3 °C due to climate change indicate a dramatic increase of up to 40% in additional costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change indices (CCI) profoundly contribute to understanding the climate and its change. They are used to present climate change in an easy-to-understand and tangible way, thus, facilitating climate communication. Most of these indices are calculated by daily data but there are also many valuable data sets that consist solely of a monthly temporal frequency. In this paper, we present a method that enables the estimation of specific CCIs from monthly instead of daily data, allowing the expression and examination of data sets consisting solely of monthly parameters through climate change indices. Therefore, we used the ERA5 Land data supplemented by a CMIP6 ssp5-8.5 climate projection to train multiple regression models with different regression functions and selected the best fitting for every grid point. Using a climate projection as a supplement in training the regression functions accounts for climate change and empowers the method's application in future climate periods. The method includes a simple bias adjustment (delta change). Its output is regridded to ERA5 Land's 0. 1 ∘ grid, adapting it to the local environment and offering better application in areas with complex terrain using coarse data. Furthermore, the presented method and its regression coefficients can be created from any data set, allowing an even higher spatial resolution than ERA5 Land's. While the method performs best for the temperature-related indices in warm temperate climates, it works uniformly well for the precipitation-related index maximum consecutive dry days on a global scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]