The two environmental drivers of thermoregulatory costs: Interactions between thermal mean and heterogeneity influence thermoregulation

Ectotherms often thermoregulate behaviourally within variable thermal environments in their attempts to acquire optimal body temperatures. Thermoregulation accrues benefits, but also incurs costs, which are crucial for understanding thermoregulatory behaviour. Costs of thermoregulating are influenced by two key attributes of the thermal environment – heterogeneity of thermal microhabitats and the deviation of the mean temperature from an animal’s preferred temperature. However, empirical research has rarely distinguished between these two drivers of thermoregulatory costs or examined them concurrently.
Our experiment used a novel thermoregulatory arena to examine the independent and interactive effects of the two environmental drivers of costs of thermoregulation on the thermoregulatory behaviour of a small ectotherm, the jacky dragon (Amphibolurus muricatus).
Following previous theory we predicted that i) thermoregulation would be higher in environments with greater thermal heterogenei..., , , # Data from: The two environmental drivers of thermoregulatory costs: Interactions between thermal mean and heterogeneity influence thermoregulation

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m6c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ttdz08m6c)

This dataset presents the results from a behavioural experiment examining how environmental temperatures influence animal thermoregulation. The experiment was conducted in a lab setting using the jacky lizard, Amphibolurus muricatus (Agamidae).

## Description of the data and file structure

The data are presented in a single .csv file.

Each row in the file is a single individual lizard whose thermoregulatory behaviour was recorded in a trial. The experimental design manipulated the mean environmental temperature (continuously) as well as the heterogeneity of environmental temperatures (3 categories) within a custom-built arena. Environmental temperatures, lizard body temperatures, and lizard movement in the arena were recorded and analyzed across 4 hours....