Soil temperatures at different depths down the soil profile are important agro-meteorological indicators which are necessary for ecological modeling and precision agricultural activities.  In this paper, using time series of soil temperature (ST) measured at different depths (0, 5, 10, 20, and 40 cm) at agro-meteorological stations in northern China as reference data, ST was estimated from land surface temperature (LST) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from AQUA/TERRA MODIS data, and solar declination (Ds) in univariate and multivariate linear regression models.  Results showed that when daytime LST is used as predictor, the coefficient of determination (R2) values decrease from the 0 cm layer to the 40 cm layer.  Additionally, with the use of nighttime LST as predictor, the R2 values were relatively higher at 5, 10 and 15 cm depths than those at 0, 20 and 40 cm depths.  It is further observed that the multiple linear regression models for soil temperature estimation outperform the univariate linear regression models based on the root mean squared errors (RMSEs) and R2.  These results have demonstrated the potential of MODIS data in tandem with the Ds parameter for soil temperature estimation at the upper layers of the soil profile where plant roots grow in.  To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt at the synergistic use of

Climate change has led to a substantial increase in intensity and duration of heat waves worldwide.  Predicting the ecological impacts of hot events should incorporate both immediate and potential carry-over effects in different intensities of heat waves.  Previous studies suggested that higher heat dose in early life stage of insect generally decreased immediate survival and depressed adult reproduction through carry-over effects, or unchanged adult performance through recovery effects.  However, our previous study showed a different pattern, in which longer heat exposures in larval stage did not always decrease but sometimes increase the subsequent adult maturation success in the diamondback moth.  We speculated that it might be another important pattern in the carry-over effects vs. heat dose, and conducted experiments using a global pest, Plutella xylostella.  Our present results suggested that heat exposures in early life stage reduced the immediate survival and produced general declines with significant zigzag fluctuating patterns in subsequent body size and reproduction as exposure durations increased.  The similar patterns were also validated in other insect taxa and other stresses by reanalyzing the experiment data from literatures.  The finding highlights the importance for differentiating the biological effects and consequences of changes in heat dose at fine scales; daily exposure hours of a hot day should be considered to predict population dynamic under climate change.