Pearson P R, Warner D A
Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA
Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA.
Biol Lett. 2016 Oct;12(10). doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2016.0646.
Embryonic environments influence phenotypic development, but relatively few experiments have explored the effects of natural environmental variation. We incubated eggs of the lizard Anolis sagrei under conditions that mimicked natural spatial and temporal thermal variation to determine their effects on offspring morphology and performance. Incubation temperatures mimicked two microhabitats (open, shade) at two different times of the incubation season (April, July). Egg survival, incubation duration and offspring size were influenced by interactions between habitat- and season-specific nest temperatures, and locomotor performance was influenced primarily by temporal factors. These findings highlight the importance of spatial and temporal environmental variation in generating variation in fitness-related phenotypes.
胚胎环境会影响表型发育，但相对较少的实验探究过自然环境变化的影响。我们在模拟自然空间和时间温度变化的条件下孵化变色安乐蜥的卵，以确定其对后代形态和性能的影响。孵化温度模拟了孵化季节两个不同时间（四月、七月）的两种微生境（开阔地、阴凉处）。卵的存活率、孵化持续时间和后代大小受栖息地和季节特定巢温之间相互作用的影响，而运动性能主要受时间因素影响。这些发现凸显了空间和时间环境变化在产生与适应性相关表型变异方面的重要性。
