Behavioral buffering of global warming in a cold‐adapted lizard
[EN] Alpine lizards living in restricted areas might be particularly sensitive to climate change. We studied thermal biology of Iberolacerta cyreni in high mountains of central Spain. Our results suggest that I. cyreni is a cold-adapted thermal specialist and an effective thermoregulator. Among ecto...
| Autores: | , , |
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2016 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad de León |
| Repositorio: | BULERIA. Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de León |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:buleria.unileon.es:10612/23257 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/ece3.2216 https://hdl.handle.net/10612/23257 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Zoología Temperatura Termorregulación Cambio climático Iberolacerta Iberolacerta cyreni Lagartijas Behavioral thermoregulation Cold-adapted Global warming Lizard Temperature 2401.02 Comportamiento Animal 2401.06 Ecología Animal 2401.13 Fisiología Animal 2401.23 Vertebrados 3105.09 Influencia del Hábitat 3105.12 Ordenación y Conservación de la Fauna Silvestre |
| Sumario: | [EN] Alpine lizards living in restricted areas might be particularly sensitive to climate change. We studied thermal biology of Iberolacerta cyreni in high mountains of central Spain. Our results suggest that I. cyreni is a cold-adapted thermal specialist and an effective thermoregulator. Among ectotherms, thermal specialists are more threatened by global warming than generalists. Alpine lizards have no chance to disperse to new suitable habitats. In addition, physiological plasticity is unlikely to keep pace with the expected rates of environmental warming. Thus, lizards might rely on their behavior in order to deal with ongoing climate warming. Plasticity of thermoregulatory behavior has been proposed to buffer the rise of environmental temperatures. Therefore, we studied the change in body and environmental temperatures, as well as their relationships, for I. cyreni between the 1980s and 2012. Air temperatures have increased more than 3.5°C and substrate temperatures have increased by 6°C in the habitat of I. cyreni over the last 25 years. However, body temperatures of lizards have increased less than 2°C in the same period, and the linear relationship between body and environmental temperatures remains similar. These results show that alpine lizards are buffering the potential impact of the increase in their environmental temperatures, most probably by means of their behavior. Body temperatures of I. cyreni are still cold enough to avoid any drop in fitness. Nonetheless, if warming continues, behavioral buffering might eventually become useless, as it would imply spending too much time in shelter, losing feeding, and mating opportunities. Eventually, if body temperature exceeds the thermal optimum in the near future, fitness would decrease abruptly |
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