Functional responses in a lizard along a 3.5-km altitudinal gradient

Guerra Serén, Nina (author), Megía-Palma, Rodrigo (author), Simčič, Tatjana (author), Krofel, Miha (author), Guarino, Fabio Maria (author), Pinho, Catarina (author), Žagar, Anamarija (author), Carretero, Miguel A. (author)

Aim: Physiological and metabolic performance are key mediators of the functional response of species to environmental change. Few environments offer such a multifaceted array of stressors as high-altitude habitats, which differ markedly in temperature, water availability, UV radiation and oxygen pressure compared to low-altitude habitats. Species that inhabit large altitudinal gradients are thus excellent models to study how organisms respond to environmental variation. Location: Tenerife island, Canary Islands archipelago (Spain). Taxon: Tenerife lizard (Gallotia galloti, Lacertidae). Methods: We integrated data on age structure, thermal and hydric regulatory behaviour and four metabolic and stress-related biomarkers for an insular lizard that inhabits an extreme altitudinal range (sea level to 3700 m a.s.l.), to understand how an ectotherms' age, ecophysiology and metabolism can be affected by extreme environmental variation. Results: We found marked differences in metabolic stress markers associated with altitude (particularly in the abundance of carbonyl metabolites and relative telomere length), but without a linear pattern along the altitudinal cline. Contrary to expectations, longer telomeres and lower carbonyl content were detected at the highest altitude, suggesting reduced stress in these populations. Evaporative water loss differed between populations but did not follow a linear altitudinal gradient. Lizard age structure or thermal physiological performance did not markedly change across different altitudes. Mixed signals in life-history and thermal ecology across populations and altitude suggest complex responses to variable conditions across altitude in this species. Main Conclusions: Our integrative study of multiple functional traits demonstrated that adaptation to highly divergent environmental conditions in this lizard is potentially linked to an interplay between plasticity and local adaptation variably associated with different functional traits.

• Language: English
• Keywords: ecophysiology, evaporative water loss, metabolic activity, oxidative stress, preferred temperatures, relative telomere length, skeletochronology
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: BF - Biotechnical Faculty
• Publication status: Published
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2023
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: str. 2042-2056
• Numbering: iss. 12, Vol. 50
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-150469
• UDC: 59
• ISSN on article: 1365-2699
• DOI: 10.1111/jbi.14711
• COBISS.SI-ID: 164393731
• Publication date in RUL: 18.09.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Journal of biogeography
• Shortened title: J. Biogeogr.
• Publisher: Blackwell Science
• ISSN: 1365-2699
• COBISS.SI-ID: 26449965

Licences

• License: CC BY-NC 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
• Description: A creative commons license that bans commercial use, but the users don’t have to license their derivative works on the same terms.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Keywords: ekofiziologija, izguba vode, metabolna aktivnost, oksidativni stres, preferenčna temperatura, relativna dolžina telomer, skeletokronologija

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P4-0059-2020
• Name: Gozd, gozdarstvo in obnovljivi gozdni viri