Heat Water and Lizards season 1 data

Translocation to future-suitable yet currently cooler locations is increasingly necessary to mitigate climate change effects in ectotherms such as reptiles. Our understanding of species’ ability to cope in these new environments lags demand, as does our understanding of hydro-thermal trade-offs for ectotherms. Here we investigated behavioural responses to both temperature and relative humidity, rarely studied in tandem, in two latitudinally distinct lineages of a cryptic, burrow-dwelling endangered lizard. We found population differences in hydro-thermal behaviour among wild lineages that persisted in a trial translocation, indicating an absence of, or lag in plasticity for the translocated northern lineage that may affect translocation outcomes. More broadly our results indicate that local adaptation may play a role in the suitability of target lineages for proposed translocation environments and potentially the time required for lineages of any species moved across latitudes or climatic regions to acclimate under translocation.

为缓解气候变化对爬行动物等变温动物（ectotherms）的影响，将其迁移至未来气候适宜但当前温度更低的区域正变得愈发必要。当前，我们对物种在这类新环境中的适应能力的认知仍滞后于实际需求，对变温动物水热权衡（hydro-thermal trade-offs）的认知亦是如此。本研究针对一种隐蔽穴居的濒危蜥蜴的两个纬度分化支系，探究了其对温度与相对湿度的行为响应——这类联合研究此前较为罕见。我们发现，不同野生支系的种群间存在的水热行为差异，在辅助迁移试验中依然存在，这表明被迁移的北部支系要么缺乏行为可塑性，要么其可塑性响应存在滞后，这可能会对迁移结果产生不利影响。从更广泛的研究视角来看，我们的结果表明，本地适应可能会影响目标支系对预设迁移环境的适配性，同时也可能影响任何跨纬度或气候区域迁移的物种支系在迁移过程中所需的驯化时间。