Behavioral buffering of global warming in a cold-adapted lizard

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Climate Change Biology
• Herpetology

Background:

• Alpine ectotherms face significant climate change threats due to restricted habitats and limited dispersal.
• Cold-adapted thermal specialists, like Iberolacerta cyreni, are particularly vulnerable to warming compared to generalists.
• Physiological plasticity may not be sufficient to cope with rapid environmental temperature increases.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the thermal biology and thermoregulatory behavior of Iberolacerta cyreni in response to climate warming.
• To assess the capacity of behavioral thermoregulation to buffer rising environmental temperatures in alpine lizards.
• To determine the impact of recent climate warming on the body and environmental temperatures of Iberolacerta cyreni.

Main Methods:

• Studied the thermal biology of Iberolacerta cyreni in the high mountains of central Spain.
• Compared body and environmental temperatures, and their relationship, between the 1980s and 2012.
• Analyzed changes in air and substrate temperatures over a 25-year period.

Main Results:

• Iberolacerta cyreni is a cold-adapted thermal specialist and an effective thermoregulator.
• Air temperatures increased by over 3.5°C and substrate temperatures by 6°C between the 1980s and 2012.
• Lizard body temperatures increased by less than 2°C, indicating successful behavioral buffering of warming.

Conclusions:

• Alpine lizards are employing behavioral strategies to mitigate the impacts of rising environmental temperatures.
• Current behavioral buffering maintains body temperatures within a range that avoids fitness decline.
• Continued warming may overwhelm behavioral buffering capacity, potentially leading to reduced fitness due to exceeding thermal optima.