Evaporative Water Loss as a Restriction on Habitat Use in Endangered New Zealand Endemic Skinks

Neilson, Keri

doi:10.2307/1566176

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…We generated a dataset of EWL estimates by augmenting Mautz's () compilation for lizards with more recent studies of EWL in both lizards and snakes (see Table S1, Supporting Information online). We included studies that measured EWL using three methods: (1) as the change in the mass of an animal in a chamber with airflow over a set time period at a particular temperature (e.g, Neilson ; Moen ); (2) as the change in mass of a chemical desiccant (anhydrous calcium sulfate or silicon dioxide) exposed to excurrent air from a chamber containing an animal at a particular temperature (e.g., Dawson and Templeton ; Cullum ); and (3) using gas analysis or freeze precipitation to measure water vapor and determine the difference in water content between incurrent and excurrent air from the animal chamber (e.g., Duvdevani and Borut ; Thompson and Withers ). For each study, we recorded mean rate of EWL (respiratory + cutaneous water loss, mg/h), mean body size (g), method of measurement (mass loss, chemical desiccant, water vapor analysis), and temperature during measurement.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary shifts in habitat aridity predict evaporative water loss across squamate reptiles

Cox

2015

Evolution

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Aridity is an important determinant of species distributions, shaping both ecological and evolutionary diversity. Lizards and snakes are often abundant in deserts, suggesting a high potential for adaptation or acclimation to arid habitats. However, phylogenetic evidence indicates that squamate diversity in deserts may be more strongly tied to speciation within arid habitats than to convergent evolution following repeated colonization from mesic habitats. To assess the frequency of evolutionary transitions in habitat aridity while simultaneously testing for associated changes in water-balance physiology, we analyzed estimates of total evaporative water loss (EWL) for 120 squamate species inhabiting arid, semiarid, or mesic habitats. Phylogenetic reconstructions revealed that evolutionary transitions to and from semiarid habitats were much more common than those between arid and mesic extremes. Species from mesic habitats exhibited significantly higher EWL than those from arid habitats, while species from semiarid habitats had intermediate EWL. Phylogenetic comparative methods confirmed this association between habitat aridity and EWL despite phylogenetic signal in each. Thus, the historical colonization of arid habitats by squamates is repeatedly associated with adaptive changes in EWL. This physiological convergence, which may reflect both phenotypic plasticity and genetic adaptation, has likely contributed to the success of squamates in arid environments.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolutionary shifts in habitat aridity predict evaporative water loss across squamate reptiles

Cox

2015

Evolution

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“…Dehydration status or access to water is often used as modulatory factors to explain patterns in reptile life history, ecology and behaviour. For example, restriction in water availability may constrain growth rate (Lorenzon et al , ), alter habitat selection (Neilson, ), affect immune function (Moeller, Butler & DeNardo, ) and trigger mother–offspring conflicts (Dupoué et al , ). In a few cases, morphological features are used to reduce dehydration (Davis & DeNardo, ) or to exploit water from non‐conventional sources, like in the case of rain‐harvesting species (Bentley & Blumer, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in field body temperature and total evaporative water loss along an environmental gradient in a diurnal ectotherm

et al. 2019

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The maintenance of optimal body temperatures has profound consequences on all aspects of ectotherms life history, like fitness and performance, and has been the subject of research for decades. In contrast, for reptiles, comparatively less is known on the potential effects of water balance on physiology, ecology and behaviour. In recent years, several recent studies are pointing out the importance of studying thermoregulation and water balance within the same framework. Here, we used a Mediterranean lizard, Psammodromus algirus, to investigate how field body temperature and water loss rates may vary among populations, between sexes and along an altitudinal gradient. We found little variation in field body temperatures among populations, while within each population, field body temperature may change daily, seasonally and differ between sexes. On the contrary, water loss rates decreased with elevation and showed no seasonal trend or difference between sexes. Microclimatic data indicated that highland lizards experienced more fluctuating conditions, a factor that may explain their lower water loss rates. Other factors, like inter‐population differences in ectoparasite intensity, might also contribute in explaining the observed patterns. We present here the first data for a lacertid lizard on the inter‐population variability and sexual difference in water loss rates and point out that water balance may play a fundamental role in regulating lizard activity during the hottest and driest period of the year.

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“…Compared with thermal traits, behavioural and physiological traits that relate to water loss are rarely measured for reptiles (e.g. Mautz ; Crowley ; Neilson ; Davis & DeNardo ). The aforementioned analyses provide a holistic perspective on how such traits interact with the heat and energy (nutrient) budget in realistic environmental settings and show how important they may be for predicting how they will respond to environmental change.…”

Section: Putting It All Together: the Heat Water And Energy Budget Omentioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing heat, water and nutrients under environmental change: a thermodynamic niche framework

et al. 2012

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Summary1. Models of the regulatory behaviour of organisms are fundamental to a strong physiologically-based understanding of species' responses to global environmental change. Biophysical models of heat and water exchange in organisms (biophysical ecology) and nutritionally-explicit models for understanding feeding behaviour and its fitness consequences (the Geometric Framework of nutrition, GF) are providing such an underpinning. However, temperature, water and nutrition interact in fundamental ways in influencing the responses of the organism to their environment, and a priority is to develop an integrated approach for conceptualising and measuring these interactions. 2. Ideally, such an approach would be based on a thermodynamically-formalized energy and mass budgeting approach that is sparsely parameterised and sufficiently general to apply across a range of situations and organisms. Here we illustrate how mass-balance aspects of Dynamic Energy Budget theory can be applied to obtain first-principles estimates of fluxes of O 2 , CO 2 , H 2 O and nitrogenous waste. 3. Then, using an herbivorous lizard (Egernia cunninghami) as a case study, we demonstrate how these estimates can be integrated with heat/water exchange models and environmental data to provide a holistic understanding of how foraging strategy, food availability, habitat and weather interact with heat, water and nutrient/energy budgets across the life-cycle. 4. The analysis shows the potential importance of the water balance in affecting the energy budgets of 'dry skinned' ectotherms, especially early in ontogeny, and highlights a significant gap in our knowledge of the physiological and behavioural traits that affect water balance when compared with our knowledge of thermal traits. 5. In general, the modelling approach we describe can provide the thermodynamically-constrained stage on which other evolutionary and ecological interactions play out; the 'thermodynamic niche'. This in turn provides a solid foundation from which to tackle key questions about organismal responses to environmental change.

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Evaporative Water Loss as a Restriction on Habitat Use in Endangered New Zealand Endemic Skinks

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Evolutionary shifts in habitat aridity predict evaporative water loss across squamate reptiles

Evolutionary shifts in habitat aridity predict evaporative water loss across squamate reptiles

Variation in field body temperature and total evaporative water loss along an environmental gradient in a diurnal ectotherm

Balancing heat, water and nutrients under environmental change: a thermodynamic niche framework

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