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Fitness of juvenile lizards depends on seasonal timing of hatching, not offspring body size

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Abstract

To understand how selection shapes life-history traits, we need information on the manner in which offspring phenotypes influence fitness. Life-history allocation models typically assume that “bigger offspring are better”, but field data paint a more complex picture: larger offspring size sometimes enhances fitness, and sometimes not. Additionally, higher survival and faster growth of larger offspring might be due to indirect maternal effects (e.g., mothers allocate hormones or nutrients differently to different-sized eggs), and not to offspring size per se. Alternative factors, such as seasonal timing of hatching, may be more important. We examined these issues using 419 eggs from captive jacky dragon lizards (Amphibolurus muricatus). The mothers were maintained under standardized conditions to minimize variance in thermal and nutritional history, and the eggs were incubated under controlled conditions to minimize variance in offspring phenotypes due to incubation temperature and moisture. We reduced the size of half the eggs (and, thus, the size of the resultant hatchlings) from each clutch by yolk extraction. The hatchlings were marked and released at a field site over a 3-month period, with regular recapture surveys to measure growth and survival under natural conditions. Growth rates and survival were strongly enhanced by early-season hatching, but were not affected by hatchling body size.

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Acknowledgments

We thank T. Child, T. Schwartz, J. Thomas, and C. Warner for assistance in the field. DAW was supported by and International Postgraduate Research Scholarship and International Postgraduate Award. This project was supported by grants from the Australian Society of Herpetologists (to DAW) and the Australian Research Council (to RS). This project was approved by the University of Sydney Animal Care and Ethics Committee (proposal no L04/12-2004/1/4018), and the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service (license no. S10658).

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  1. Daniel A. Warner

    Present address: Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA

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  1. School of Biological Sciences, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, 2006, Australia

    Daniel A. Warner & Richard Shine

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  1. Daniel A. Warner
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  2. Richard Shine
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Correspondence to Daniel A. Warner.

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Communicated by Anssi Laurila.

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Warner, D.A., Shine, R. Fitness of juvenile lizards depends on seasonal timing of hatching, not offspring body size. Oecologia 154, 65–73 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0809-9

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