Meeting Abstract
Global climate change is affecting organisms at rates to which they cannot readily adapt. Terrestrial vertebrate ectotherms, squamates in particular, are especially sensitive to these rising temperatures. Some models predict that the Earth will warm beyond the physiological and behavioral buffering capabilities of many squamates within the next 100 years. In spite of these concerns, little research has directly addressed how increasing temperatures will challenge the reproductive output and development of lizards. To address this problem, we performed a series of experiments to address the incidence and nature of structural developmental defects induced by thermal stress in the brown anole, Anolis sagrei. We hypothesized that higher incubation temperatures will lead to increased rates of developmental abnormalities and decreased rates of survival. As anticipated, the incidence of structural defects increased with incubation temperatures within the 100 year climate change forecast. Developmental defects were observed across the body, but were concentrated to the head and brain. Embryos exhibited higher survival and less extreme malformation under a short-term, sub-lethal heat shock compared to long-term incubation at elevated temperatures. Our observations suggest that rising temperatures associated with climate change may pose a novel challenge for embryological development of reptilian species that deserves greater attention by the community.
