Territorial status is explained by covariation between boldness, exploration, and thermal preference in a colour polymorphic lizard.

Colour polymorphic species often exhibit variation in morphology, physiology, and behaviour among morphs. In particular, dominance status may be signalled by the interaction between behaviour and colour morph. Behavioural traits associated with dominance include boldness, exploration, and aggression, which influence access to preferred habitat, territorial defence, and mate acquisition.

Hot, dry, and salty: The present and future of an Extremophile model lizard from Argentina.

Global warming poses a threat to lizard populations by raising ambient temperatures above historical norms and reducing thermoregulation opportunities. Whereas the reptile fauna of desert systems is relatively well studied, the lizard fauna of saline environments has not received much attention and-to our knowledge-thermal ecology and the effects of global warming on lizards from saline environments have not been yet addressed. This pioneer study investigates the thermal ecology, locomotor performance and potential effects of climate warming on Liolaemus ditadai, a lizard endemic to one of the largest salt flats on Earth.

The Shape of Water: Physiological Adaptations to Habitat Aridity in the Ornate Tree Lizard (Urosaurus ornatus).

Deserts have always amazed researchers due to their high diversity of habitats, where plant and animal species have been able to adapt and diversify, even when these areas impose several constraints on an organism's activity patterns. In particular, deserts support several lizard species adapted to the thermal and water restrictions found in such biomes. Although several studies have attempted to understand how lizard species might respond to water deficits or droughts in deserts, few have addressed how these responses might vary along a latitudinal gradient.

Behavioral plasticity during acute heat stress: heat hardening increases the expression of boldness.

Climate change is creating novel thermal environments via rising temperatures and increased frequency of severe weather events. Short-term phenotypic adjustments, i.e.

Ecological responses of squamate reptiles to nocturnal warming.

Nocturnal temperatures are increasing at a pace exceeding diurnal temperatures in most parts of the world. The role of warmer nocturnal temperatures in animal ecology has received scant attention and most studies focus on diurnal or daily descriptors of thermal environments' temporal trends. Yet, available evidence from plant and insect studies suggests that organisms can exhibit contrasting physiological responses to diurnal and nocturnal warming.

Tongue of the Egyptian Endemic Bridled Skink (; Olivier, 1804): Gross, Electron Microscopy, Histochemistry, and Immunohistochemical Analysis.

The present study used light and scanning electron microscopy to describe the integrative morphological description of the tongue and laryngeal mound of , an endemic lizard of Saharan Africa. Additionally, ultrastructure, histology, histochemistry, and immunohistochemical approaches were used to characterize the lingual apparatus adaptations. In the present study, consisted of a complex lingual papillary system in which the ventral apical surface of the foretongue comprised conical papillae.

Climate change and collapsing thermal niches of desert reptiles and amphibians: Assisted migration and acclimation rescue from extirpation.

Recent climate change should result in expansion of species to northern or high elevation range margins, and contraction at southern and low elevation margins in the northern hemisphere, because of local extirpations or range shifts or both. We combined museum occurrence records from both the continental U.S.

How exceptional are the classic adaptive radiations of passerine birds?

We investigated whether celebrated cases of evolutionary radiations of passerine birds on islands have produced exceptional morphological diversity relative to comparable-aged radiations globally. Based on eight external measurements, we calculated the disparity in size and shape within clades, each of which was classified as being tropical or temperate and as having diversified in a continental or an island/archipelagic setting. We found that the distribution of disparity among all clades does not differ substantively from a normal distribution, which would be consistent with a common underlying process of morphological diversification that is largely independent of latitude and occurrence on islands.

Signatures of geography, climate and foliage on given names of baby girls.

Parents often weigh social, familial and cultural considerations when choosing their baby's name, but the name they choose could potentially be influenced by their physical or biotic environments. Here we examine whether the popularity of month and season names of girls covary geographically with environmental variables. In the continental USA, April, May and June (Autumn, Summer) are the most common month (season) names: April predominates in southern states (early springs), whereas June predominates in northern states (later springs).

Trade-off between thermal preference and sperm maturation in a montane lizard.

Temperature is a key abiotic factor that influences performance of several physiological traits in ectotherms. Organisms regulate their body temperature within a range of temperatures to enhance physiological function. The capacity of ectotherms, such as lizards, to maintain their body temperature within their preferred range influences physiological traits such as speed, various reproductive patterns, and critical fitness components, such as growth rates or survival.

Quaternary megafauna extinctions altered body size distribution in tortoises.

The late Quaternary is characterized by the extinction of many terrestrial megafauna, which included tortoises (Family: Testudinidae). However, limited information is available on how extinction shaped the phenotype of surviving taxa. Here, based on a global dataset of straight carapace length, we investigate the temporal variation, spatial distribution and evolution of tortoise body size over the past 23 million years, thereby capturing the effects of Quaternary extinctions in this clade.

Environmental conditions and male quality traits simultaneously explain variation of multiple colour signals in male lizards.

Male lizards often display multiple pigment-based and structural colour signals which may reflect various quality traits (e.g. performance, parasitism), with testosterone (T) often mediating these relationships.

Habitat thermal quality for Gopherus evgoodei in tropical deciduous forest and consequences of habitat modification by buffelgrass.

Tortoises of the genus Gopherus evolved in North America and have survived major environmental challenges in the past 40 million years. However, this genus now faces multiple anthropogenic threats, such as the introduction of invasive plant species. Buffelgrass (Cenchrus ciliaris) is considered one of the greatest threats to arid and tropical ecosystems, where gopher tortoises inhabit, because the grass displaces native flora and fauna.

Intraspecific diversity alters the relationship between climate change and parasitism in a polymorphic ectotherm.

Climate-modulated parasitism is driven by a range of factors, yet the spatial and temporal variability of this relationship has received scant attention in wild vertebrate hosts. Moreover, most prior studies overlooked the intraspecific differences across host morphotypes, which impedes a full understanding of the climate-parasitism relationship. In the common lizard (Zootoca vivipara), females exhibit three colour morphs: yellow (Y-females), orange (O-females) and mixed (mixture of yellow and orange, M-females).

Seasonality in Kgalagadi Lizards: Inferences from Legacy Data.

AbstractAn ecological issue can best be studied by gathering original data that are specifically targeted for that issue. But ascertaining-a priori-whether a novel issue will be worth exploring can be problematic without background data. However, an issue's potential merit can sometimes be evaluated by repurposing legacy or other data that had been gathered for unrelated purposes but that are nonetheless relevant.

Looking at the past to infer into the future: Thermal traits track environmental change in Liolaemidae.

The diversity of habitats generated by the Andes uplift resulted a mosaic of heterogeneous environments in South America for species to evolve a variety of ecological and physiological specializations. Species in the lizard family Liolaemidae occupy a myriad of habitats in the Andes. Here, we analyze the tempo and mode of evolution in the thermal biology of liolaemids.

Intense nocturnal warming alters growth strategies, colouration and parasite load in a diurnal lizard.

In the past decades, nocturnal temperatures have been playing a disproportionate role in the global warming of the planet. Yet, they remain a neglected factor in studies assessing the impact of global warming on natural populations. Here, we question whether an intense augmentation of nocturnal temperatures is beneficial or deleterious to ectotherms.

How will climate change impact fossorial lizard species? Two examples in the Baja California Peninsula.

Global climate change and the associated erosion of habitat suitability are pervasive threats to biodiversity. It is critical to identify specific stressors to assess a species vulnerability to extinction, especially in species with distinctive natural histories. Here, we present a combination of field, laboratory, and modeling approaches to evaluate the potential consequences of climate change on two endemic, fossorial lizards species (Anniella geronimensis and Bipes biporus) from Baja California, Mexico.

Climate dependent heating efficiency in the common lizard.

Regulation of body temperature is crucial for optimizing physiological performance in ectotherms but imposes constraints in time and energy. Time and energy spent thermoregulating can be reduced through behavioral (e.g.

Can Morphology Predict the Conservation Status of Iguanian Lizards?

The integrity of regional and local biological diversity is under siege as a result of multiple anthropogenic threats. The conversion of habitats, such as rain forests, into agricultural ecosystems, reduces the area available to support species populations. Rising temperatures and altered rainfall patterns lead to additional challenges for species.

Thermal ecophysiology of a native and an invasive gecko species in a tropical dry forest of Mexico.

For ectotherms, thermal physiology plays a fundamental role in the establishment and success of invasive species in novel areas and, ultimately, in their ecological interactions with native species. Invasive species are assumed to have a greater ability to exploit the thermal environment, higher acclimation capacities, a wider thermal tolerance range, and better relative performance under a range of thermal conditions. Here we compare the thermal ecophysiology of two species that occur in sympatry in a tropical dry forest of the Pacific coast of Mexico, the microendemic species Benedetti's Leaf-toed Gecko (Phyllodactylus benedettii) and the invasive Common House Gecko (Hemidactylus frenatus).

Scaling between macro- to microscale climatic data reveals strong phylogenetic inertia in niche evolution in plethodontid salamanders.

Macroclimatic niches are indirect and potentially inadequate predictors of the realized environmental conditions that many species experience. Consequently, analyses of niche evolution based on macroclimatic data alone may incompletely represent the evolutionary dynamics of species niches. Yet, understanding how an organisms' climatic (Grinnellian) niche responds to changing macroclimatic conditions is of vital importance for predicting their potential response to global change.

Social Games and Genic Selection Drive Mammalian Mating System Evolution and Speciation.

Mating system theory based on economics of resource defense has been applied to describe social system diversity across taxa. Such models are generally successful but fail to account for stable mating systems across different environments or shifts in mating system without a change in ecological conditions. We propose an alternative approach to resource defense theory based on frequency-dependent competition among genetically determined alternative behavioral strategies characterizing many social systems (polygyny, monogamy, sneak).

Environmental variation mediates the prevalence and co-occurrence of parasites in the common lizard, Zootoca vivipara.

Background: Hosts and their parasites are under reciprocal selection, leading to coevolution. However, parasites depend not only on a host, but also on the host's environment. In addition, a single host species is rarely infested by a single species of parasite and often supports multiple species (i.