Meeting Abstract
Studies investigating the effects of changes in temperature on all life forms are becoming more numerous to better understand their adaptive potential in the face of climate change. Ectotherms are of particular concern because they need to thermoregulate to carry out basic functions and how or if they will be able to adjust to a changing climate is, as yet, unknown. The viviparous lizard (Zootoca vivipara) is a common ectothermic species, with a wide geographic range throughout Europe and Asia, allowing us to evaluate a variety of microhabitats ranging in elevation, substrate, and water availability. We collected gravid female lizards from 21 localities, representing different elevations and water availability, in the Cévennes of south-central France as part of a long-term monitoring study during the breeding season in 2017 and 2018. In the lab, females were measured for thermal preference before being randomly assigned a treatment of either 3-hours (low), 6-hours (control) or 9-hours (high) of basking time. We hypothesized that gestating females from lower elevation (warmer) populations would have significantly shorter gestation times and be most affected by the treatments. Offspring were measured for various morphological traits and thermal preference before being released with the females at their site of capture. Preliminary results show sex-dependent differences in offspring size between basking time treatments. In addition, parturition dates, both in number of days and range, also differed significantly across populations and among treatments.
