Meeting Abstract
Average global temperature is rapidly increasing and will continue to rise over the next several decades. This warmer climate is forcing organisms to either adapt or face extinction. Thermal specialists, including many tropical forest ectotherms, could be at an increased risk because they have evolved narrow thermal tolerance ranges in the thermally stable tropics. In order to cope with this increasingly hotter climate, animals, such as Anolis lizards, may have to alter the amount of time they spend active each day. Ultimately, decreases in activity time will reduce the capacity of individuals to find mates, acquire prey, or engage in other activities that are critical for reproduction. Substantial reductions in activity time may therefore precipitate a large reduction in population size. In order to determine how changes in abiotic variables (such as temperature and rainfall) may impact the activity times of a tropical ectotherm, we transplanted hundreds of Panamanian slender anoles (Anolis apletophallus) to eight islands in the Panama Canal, which vary in their abiotic conditions. Between 2017 and 2019, we conducted over 200 systematic surveys of lizard activity on random days and times across these islands. We paired these surveys with detailed measurements of environmental temperature, rainfall, solar radiation, wind speed, and lizard physiology to determine the abiotic factors that affect tropical ectotherm activity. These data will aid predictions for the responses of tropical forest ectotherms to climate change.
