Abstract
Tail autotomy in lizards is an adaptive strategy that has evolved to reduce the risk of predation. Since tail loss reduces body mass and moving ability—which in turn are expected to influence thermal balance—there is potential for a trade-off between tail autotomy and thermoregulation. To test this hypothesis, we studied a common lizard (Zootoca vivipara) population at high latitude, inhabiting a high-cost thermal environment. Z. vivipara is a small, non-territorial lizard known as a very accurate thermoregulator. We made two predictions: (1) the reduced body weight due to tail loss results in faster heating rate (a benefit), and (2) the reduction in locomotor ability after tail loss induces a shift to the use of thermally poorer microhabitats (a cost), thus decreasing the field body temperatures of active lizards. We did not find any effect of tail loss on heating rate in laboratory experiments conducted under different thermal conditions. Likewise, no significant relationship between tail condition and field body temperatures, or between tail condition and thermal microhabitat use, were detected. Thus, our results suggest that tail autotomy does not influence the accuracy of thermoregulation in small-bodied lizards.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Pirkko Siikamäki, Antti Huttunen and Pekka Jokelainen for their help in organizing our work in the Oulanka Biological Station and in the field. We also thank Charlie Avis for linguistic corrections, José Martín and three anonymous reviewers for their scientific comments. Our research was supported by an EU ‘LAPBIAT’ grant (to G.H., T.K. and T.T.). We conducted our experiments with the permission of the Oulanka National Park.
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Herczeg, G., Kovács, T., Tóth, T. et al. Tail loss and thermoregulation in the common lizard Zootoca vivipara. Naturwissenschaften 91, 485–488 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-004-0555-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-004-0555-3