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- Title
Nesting lizards (Bassiana duperreyi) compensate partly, but not completely, for climate change.
- Authors
Telemeco, Rory S.; Elphick, Melanie J.; Shine, Richard
- Abstract
Species in which ambient temperatures directly determine offspring sex may be at particular risk as global climates change. Whether or not climate change affects sex ratio depends upon the effectiveness of buffering mechanisms that link ambient regimes to actual nest temperatures. For example, females may simply lay nests earlier in the season, or m more shaded areas, such that incubation thermal regimes are unchanged despite massive ambient fluctuation. Based on eight years of monitoring nests over a 10-year period in the field at an alpine site in southeastern Australia, we show that, even though lizards (Bassiana duperreyi, Scincidae) have adjusted both nest depth and seasonal timing of oviposition in response to rising ambient temperatures, they have been unable to compensate entirely for climate change. That inability stems from the fact that the seasonal progression of soft temperatures, and thus, the degree to which thermal regimes at the time of laying predict subsequent conditions during incubation, also has shifted with climate change. As a result, mean incubation temperatures m natural nests now have crossed the thermal threshold at which incubation temperature directly affects offspring sex in this population.
- Subjects
AUSTRALIA; LIZARD behavior; CLIMATE change; REPTILE sex ratio; EGG incubation; ANIMAL populations; ANIMAL species; POPULATION biology; ZOOLOGICAL research
- Publication
Ecology, 2009, Vol 90, Issue 1, p17
- ISSN
0012-9658
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1890/08-1452.1