Female lizards (Eremias argus) reverse Bergmann’s rule across altitude

The evolution of body size within and among species is predicted to be influenced by multifarious environmental factors. However, the specific drivers of body size variation have remained difficult to understand because of the wide range of proximate factors that covary with ectotherm body sizes across populations with varying local environmental conditions. Here, we used female Eremias argus lizards collected from different populations across their wide range in China and constructed linear mixed models to assess how climatic conditions and/or available resources at different altitudes shape the geographical patterns of lizard body size across altitude. Lizard populations showed significant differences in body size across altitudes. Furthermore, we found that climatic and seasonal changes along the altitudinal gradient also explained variations in body size among populations. Specifically, body size decreased with colder and drier environmental conditions at high altitudes, reversing B..., We collected 432 female E. argus lizards between 2011 through 2021 from field locations across China varying in altitude and environmental conditions. We also used the Raster package in R to extract environmental variables for each population of lizards in our study.,物种内部及物种间体型大小的演化被预测会受到多种环境因子的综合影响。然而，由于在局部环境条件各异的种群中，与外温动物（ectotherm）体型相关联的近因因子范围广泛，体型变异的具体驱动因素始终难以厘清。本研究以采自中国境内广泛分布区域内不同种群的雌性丽斑麻蜥（Eremias argus）为研究对象，构建线性混合模型，以评估不同海拔下的气候条件与/或可利用资源如何塑造蜥蜴体型随海拔分布的地理格局。结果显示，蜥蜴种群的体型在不同海拔间存在显著差异。此外，我们发现沿海拔梯度的气候与季节变化同样可以解释种群间的体型变异。具体而言，高海拔地区寒冷干燥的环境条件下，蜥蜴体型会随之减小，这一结果逆转了B……。我们于2011年至2021年间，从中国境内海拔与环境条件各异的野外采样点共采集了432只雌性丽斑麻蜥。同时，我们使用R语言中的Raster包提取了本研究中各蜥蜴种群的环境变量。