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Adaptive responses to cool climate promotes persistence of a non-native lizard
Citation
While, GM and Williamson, J and Prescott, G and Horvathova, T and Fresnillo, B and Beeton, NJ and Halliwell, B and Michaelides, S and Uller, T, Adaptive responses to cool climate promotes persistence of a non-native lizard, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 282, (1803) Article 20142638. ISSN 0962-8452 (2015) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
Copyright 2015 The Author(s) Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
DOI: doi:10.1098/rspb.2014.2638
Abstract
Successful establishment and range expansion of non-native species often
require rapid accommodation of novel environments. Here, we use common garden
experiments to demonstrate parallel adaptive evolutionary response
to a cool climate in populations of wall lizards (Podarcis muralis) introduced
from southern Europe into England. Low soil temperatures in the introduced
range delay hatching, which generates directional selection for a shorter incubation
period. Non-native lizards from two separate lineages have responded
to this selection by retaining their embryos for longer before oviposition—
hence reducing the time needed to complete embryogenesis in the nest—and
by an increased developmental rate at low temperatures. This divergence mirrors
local adaptation across latitudes and altitudes within widely distributed
species and suggests that evolutionary responses to climate can be very
rapid. When extrapolated to soil temperatures encountered in nests within
the introduced range, embryo retention and faster developmental rate result
in one to several weeks earlier emergence compared with the ancestral state.
We show that this difference translates into substantial survival benefits for
offspring. This should promote short- and long-term persistence of nonnative
populations, and ultimately enable expansion into areas that would be
unattainable with incubation duration representative of the native range.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | adaptive divergence, range expansion, incubation duration, wall lizard |
| Research Division: | Biological Sciences |
| Research Group: | Zoology |
| Research Field: | Animal physiological ecology |
| Objective Division: | Environmental Management |
| Objective Group: | Terrestrial systems and management |
| Objective Field: | Control of pests, diseases and exotic species in terrestrial environments |
| UTAS Author: | While, GM (Dr Geoff While) |
| UTAS Author: | Beeton, NJ (Dr Nicholas Beeton) |
| UTAS Author: | Halliwell, B (Dr Benjamin Halliwell) |
| ID Code: | 98572 |
| Year Published: | 2015 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 31 |
| Deposited By: | Zoology |
| Deposited On: | 2015-02-19 |
| Last Modified: | 2017-11-01 |
| Downloads: | 172 View Download Statistics |
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