TY - JOUR
T1 - Seasonal changes in thermal biology of Podarcis lilfordi (Squamata, Lacertidae) consistently depend on habitat traits
AU - Ortega, Z.
AU - Pérez-Mellado, V.
AU - Garrido, M.
AU - Guerra, C.
AU - Villa-García, A.
AU - Alonso-Fernández, T.
N1 - Funding Information:
Financial support was provided to Zaida Ortega by predoctoral grant of the University of Salamanca (FPI program ). This work was supported at their final steps by the research projects CGL2009-12926-C02-02 and CGL2012-39850-CO2-02 from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation .
PY - 2014/1/1
Y1 - 2014/1/1
N2 - During spring and summer, we studied the thermal ecology of two populations of the Balearic lizard, Podarcis lilfordi, from two coastal islets of Menorca (Balearic Islands, Spain): Aire and Colom. We calculated the accuracy of thermoregulation, that is, the extent to which body temperatures are close to species' thermal optima, the thermal quality of the habitat as the proximity of operative temperatures to thermal optima and effectiveness of thermoregulation, as the extent to which accuracy is higher than thermal quality of the habitat. We found that seasonality affects thermoregulation differently, depending on the lizard population. Those effects are consistent for all thermal parameters under study. The effects of seasonality were significantly stronger in Aire than in Colom islet. Many factors may be responsible for this different effect of seasonality, from differences on physiological traits to differences in the environmental conditions of the two islets, as their resource availability, predator pressure or habitat structure. Identifying the factors that boost or inhibit those seasonal changes would be important to understand thermoregulation in lizards. Slight changes on two similar populations can lead to great differences in thermal ecology of conspecific ectotherms.
AB - During spring and summer, we studied the thermal ecology of two populations of the Balearic lizard, Podarcis lilfordi, from two coastal islets of Menorca (Balearic Islands, Spain): Aire and Colom. We calculated the accuracy of thermoregulation, that is, the extent to which body temperatures are close to species' thermal optima, the thermal quality of the habitat as the proximity of operative temperatures to thermal optima and effectiveness of thermoregulation, as the extent to which accuracy is higher than thermal quality of the habitat. We found that seasonality affects thermoregulation differently, depending on the lizard population. Those effects are consistent for all thermal parameters under study. The effects of seasonality were significantly stronger in Aire than in Colom islet. Many factors may be responsible for this different effect of seasonality, from differences on physiological traits to differences in the environmental conditions of the two islets, as their resource availability, predator pressure or habitat structure. Identifying the factors that boost or inhibit those seasonal changes would be important to understand thermoregulation in lizards. Slight changes on two similar populations can lead to great differences in thermal ecology of conspecific ectotherms.
KW - Behavioral thermoregulation
KW - Daily activity
KW - Islands
KW - Podarcis lilfordi
KW - Seasonal variation
KW - Thermal effectiveness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84890259779&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2013.11.006
DO - 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2013.11.006
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84890259779
SN - 0306-4565
VL - 39
SP - 32
EP - 39
JO - Journal of Thermal Biology
JF - Journal of Thermal Biology
IS - 1
ER -