Meeting Abstract
A key aim of ecology is understanding how populations respond to environmental variation, especially rapid climate warming. While climate change is typically modeled on a continental or global scale, responses depend on complex physiology-microenvironment interactions that manifest at both population and individual levels. In species with temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), temperature variation may dramatically skew offspring sex ratios, reducing population viability. However, predictive models that rely on broad-scale climate data do not capture the microclimate-scale processes that drive thermally-mediated embryonic development. We used a spatially-explicit model of embryonic development, driven by a mechanistic soil temperature model, to examine the microclimate-mediated consequences of hypothetical behavioral and physiological responses to climate warming in painted turtles (Chrysemys picta), a widespread species with TSD. Shifts in thermal reaction norms, due to modifications of either maternal behavior (nesting phenology and/or nest location and depth) or temperature-dependent developmental parameters, could buffer offspring sex ratios against climate change. However, effectiveness of either strategy is mediated locally by the rate of response(s) and magnitude of climate warming observed.
