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Altitudinally divergent adult phenotypes in Iberian wall lizards are not driven by egg differences or hatchling growth rates

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Abstract

The interplay between ecological conditions and life histories has been widely acknowledged in vertebrates, particularly in lizards. Environmental conditions may exert different selective pressures and produce divergent phenotypes even in geographically and genetically close populations. The Iberian wall lizard constitutes a perfect model organism as it is considered a species complex with a complicated evolutionary history. Here, we focus on two proximate populations in which we examined adult morphology and reproductive investment of wild-caught lizards along a 500-m altitudinal gradient with contrasting environmental conditions, where adults show marked morphological differences in spite of being closely related. Also, we performed a common garden experiment to examine embryonic and hatchling growth. We focused on reproductive investment per clutch, incubation time, egg size, morphology and growth rate of hatchlings. Results showed clutch size differences between populations that were independent of the larger body size of highland females. However, there were no egg morphological differences between populations, except for egg width, and this difference disappeared after controlling for female body size. Hatchling lizards from both populations did not differ in morphology. Moreover, we did not observe differences between populations or sexes in hatchling growth. Overall, we provide evidence that the differences in adult body size and clutch size are not driven by size at hatching which is not contributed to by egg size, nor are intrinsic hatchling growth rates associated with the environmental conditions experienced in our common garden experiment, suggesting that adult phenotypes are not the result of intrinsic differences between populations.

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Acknowledgments

We thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments, Jose A. Díaz for his statistical expertise and advice, Elena Fraile for her support in field campaigns and El Ventorrillo MNCN Field Station for use of their facilities. Financial support was provided by the project MICIIN-CGL2011-24150/BOS, and by a Pre-JAE grant from CSIC to J. O. Captures and experiments of lizards were performed under license from the Environmental Agency of Madrid Government.

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  1. Departamento de Ecología Evolutiva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, C.S.I.C, José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006, Madrid, Spain

    Jesús Ortega, Pilar López & José Martín

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  1. Jesús Ortega
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  2. Pilar López
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  3. José Martín
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Correspondence to Jesús Ortega.

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Communicated by Raoul Van Damme.

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Ortega, J., López, P. & Martín, J. Altitudinally divergent adult phenotypes in Iberian wall lizards are not driven by egg differences or hatchling growth rates. Oecologia 177, 357–366 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-014-3185-2

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