Climate exposure is often represented at spatial and temporal scales much coarser than those at which insects experience temperature, select microsites, alter activity, and complete reproduction. This creates an inferential gap between organismal thermal behaviour and population persistence. We develop a proposed scale-transition model in which geographic persistence is not inferred directly from thermoregulatory behaviour. Instead, persistence requires conditional transitions linking organism-relevant microclimate, temperature-contingent selection, physiological buffering, activity and reproduction, local demographic continuity, connectivity among usable refugia, and geographic colonisation–extinction balance. The evidence supports fine-scale thermal heterogeneity, taxon- and region-specific thermoregulatory behaviour, distinct behavioural and physiological buffering routes, and cases in which survival is maintained while reproduction is not. These findings make lethal-temperature avoidance an insufficient criterion for demographic buffering. The framework therefore treats each scale transition as an evidential gate rather than assuming that a beneficial response at one level propagates upward. Behavioral buffering can contribute to persistence only when suitable microclimates exist, can be detected and accessed, preserve performance across relevant life stages, and remain connected through time and space. Failure can therefore arise before physiological limits are crossed. The model is a testable ecological synthesis, not an empirically validated predictor of insect range persistence.
