RESEARCH ARTICLE Are lizards sensitive to anomalous seasonal temperatures? Long-term thermobiological variability in a subtropical species 1¤ 1 2 1 Andre Vicente LizID *, Vinicius SantosID , Talita Ribeiro , Murilo Guimarães , Laura Verrastro1 1 Programa de PoÂs±GraduacËão em Biologia Animal, Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, 2 Programa de PoÂs± GraduacËão em Ecologia, Departamento de Ecologia, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio a1111111111 Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil a1111111111 a1111111111 ¤ Current address: CIBIO/InBIO, Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources, University of a1111111111 Porto, Vairão, Portugal a1111111111 *
[email protected] Abstract OPEN ACCESS Alterations in thermal niches have been widely associated with the Anthropocene erosion of Citation: Vicente Liz A, Santos V, Ribeiro T, reptiles' diversity. They entail potential physiological constraints for organisms' perfor- Guimarães M, Verrastro L (2019) Are lizards mance, which can lead to activity restrictions and impact fitness and demography. Reptiles sensitive to anomalous seasonal temperatures? are ectotherms which rely on seasonal periodicity to maximize the performance of biological Long-term thermobiological variability in a subtropical species. PLoS ONE 14(12): e0226399. functions. Despite it, the ecological implications of shifts in local temperatures are barely https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0226399 explored at the seasonal scale. This study aims to assess how changes in air temperature Editor: William David Halliday, Wildlife and substrate temperature affect the activity, body temperature (Tb) and thermoregulation Conservation Society Canada, CANADA patterns of the sand lizard, Liolaemus arambarensis (an endangered, microendemic spe- Received: July 8, 2019 cies from southern Brazil), throughout a four-year period.