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.