Huey Raymond B, Pianka Eric R
Department of Biology, Box 351800, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA.
Am Nat. 2007 Sep;170(3):473-8. doi: 10.1086/520122. Epub 2007 Jul 16.
For more than six decades, physiological ecologists have intensively studied diverse aspects of lizard thermal biology. Nevertheless, a recent review notes that prior studies have generally ignored gender differences in body temperatures, thermal sensitivity, or other aspects of thermal biology. We concur that gender differences have been ignored and should be examined: if gender differences prove common, standard protocols for studying lizard natural history, thermal physiology, and ecology will require significant modification. To help resolve this issue, we conducted a retrospective analysis of our huge data set on the thermal biology of many desert lizards (more than 11,000 individuals from 56 species in seven major clades) from Africa, Australia, and North America. Results are unambiguous: gender differences in body temperature, air temperature, and time of activity--and thus in field thermal biology--are almost always minor. In fact, mean body temperatures of males and females differ by less than 1 degrees C in 80.4% of species. For desert lizards, gender differences in thermal biology are the exception, not the rule. Nevertheless, gender differences should be examined when feasible because exceptions--though likely rare--could be biologically interesting.
六十多年来，生理生态学家一直在深入研究蜥蜴热生物学的各个方面。然而，最近的一篇综述指出，先前的研究普遍忽视了体温、热敏感性或热生物学其他方面的性别差异。我们认同性别差异一直被忽视，应该进行研究：如果性别差异被证明很常见，那么研究蜥蜴自然史、热生理学和生态学的标准方案将需要重大修改。为了帮助解决这个问题，我们对来自非洲、澳大利亚和北美的许多沙漠蜥蜴（七个主要类群中的56个物种的11000多个个体）的热生物学庞大数据集进行了回顾性分析。结果很明确：体温、气温和活动时间的性别差异——进而在野外热生物学方面的差异——几乎总是很小。事实上，在80.4%的物种中，雄性和雌性的平均体温差异不到1摄氏度。对于沙漠蜥蜴来说，热生物学中的性别差异是例外，而不是普遍规律。然而，只要可行，就应该研究性别差异，因为这些例外情况——尽管可能很少见——在生物学上可能很有趣。
