Meeting Abstract
Growth and survival in reptiles are strongly influenced by the thermal landscape of the habitat, and the thermal dependence of physiological functions requires behavioral trade-offs between basking, foraging, and locating mates. Diet composition has the potential to play an important role in thermal preference. However, detailed studies linking thermal physiology and food composition to digestion efficiency have received little attention. Therefore, our aim was to determine how the composition of the diet affects both thermal preference and the relationship between preferred body temperature and the aerobic scope of digestion. To determine how diet affects thermal preference, we measured the preferred body temperature of wall lizards (P. muralis) that were fed either a high protein or high carbohydrate diet. Preliminary results indicate that lizards fed a high carbohydrate diet select body temperatures 2 °C higher (29.9 ± 2.5 °C) than those fed a high protein diet (27.4 ± 3.1°C). The 10th and 90th percentiles of body temperatures selected in lizards fed a high carbohydrate diet were 22.3 ± 1.7deg&;C and 36.3 ± 1.5°C, and 19.2 ± 1.4°C and 35.7 ± 2.1°C in lizards fed a high protein diet. Therefore, in addition to selecting higher body temperatures, lizards fed a high carbohydrate diet select a narrower range of body temperatures compared to those fed a high protein diet. Future experiments will measure the aerobic scope of digestion at several temperatures between 22.5 and 37.5°C to determine how differences in the preferred body temperature while digesting different diets relates to the aerobic scope of digestion.
