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Geographic variation in the life history of the sagebrush lizard: the role of thermal constraints on activity

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Abstract

Thermal constraints on the time available for activity have been proposed as a proximate mechanism to explain variation in suites of life history traits. The longer that an ectotherm can maintain activity, the more time it has to forage and the greater chance that it will encounter a predator and be eaten. Thus, the thermal environment may produce a trade off between growth and survival when variation in the environment favors increased activity. I used mark-recapture data from a demographic study of three natural populations of the sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus graciosus) and estimates of thermal opportunity for each population to evaluate whether variation in the thermal environment can explain patterns of growth and survival that occur over an elevational gradient. Lizards from the highest elevation population exhibited higher individual growth rates than those of lizards from lower elevation, while mortality rates increased with elevation for these populations. The covariation of fast growth and high mortality with increased thermal opportunity is the opposite trend expected if the thermal environment alone is to explain patterns of life history in these lizards. Additional factors including thermal heterogeneity in the distribution of microhabitats of lizards, adaptation to local environmental conditions, and a potential trade-off between resource acquisition and predation risk need to be addressed to obtain a satisfactory explanation of the causative mechanisms producing life history variation.

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Acknowledgements

I thank A. Dunham, M. Angilletta, P. Petraitis, J. Congdon, M. O’Connor, J. McNair, and B. Casper for helpful comments on the manuscript. Steve Adolph and an anonymous reviewer provided further thoughtful critiques of this manuscript. I also thank W. Porter for graciously providing software to calculate thermal constraints on activity. I would also like to thank Mary Hunnicutt and Dan Cohan for the support they provided at Zion National Park. Many volunteers were invaluable for completing much of the fieldwork, especially Shane Pruett, Claire Crow, Mike Wall, Mark Lawler, and Mike Robson. Animals in this study were collected with permission from the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the National Park Service. All work was performed in accordance with the regulations and recommendations of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee of the University of Pennsylvania.

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Correspondence to Michael W. Sears.

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Sears, M.W. Geographic variation in the life history of the sagebrush lizard: the role of thermal constraints on activity. Oecologia 143, 25–36 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-004-1767-0

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