School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia.
Evolution & Ecology Research Centre, School of Biological, Earth, and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol. 2018 Apr;329(4-5):162-176. doi: 10.1002/jez.2181. Epub 2018 May 28.
Early life environments shape phenotypic development in important ways that can lead to long-lasting effects on phenotype and fitness. In reptiles, one aspect of the early environment that impacts development is temperature (termed 'thermal developmental plasticity'). Indeed, the thermal environment during incubation is known to influence morphological, physiological, and behavioral traits, some of which have important consequences for many ecological and evolutionary processes. Despite this, few studies have attempted to synthesize and collate data from this expansive and important body of research. Here, we systematically review research into thermal developmental plasticity across reptiles, structured around the key papers and findings that have shaped the field over the past 50 years. From these papers, we introduce a large database (the 'Reptile Development Database') consisting of 9,773 trait means across 300 studies examining thermal developmental plasticity. This dataset encompasses data on a range of phenotypes, including morphological, physiological, behavioral, and performance traits along with growth rate, incubation duration, sex ratio, and survival (e.g., hatching success) across all major reptile clades. Finally, from our literature synthesis and data exploration, we identify key research themes associated with thermal developmental plasticity, important gaps in empirical research, and demonstrate how future progress can be made through targeted empirical, meta-analytic, and comparative work.
早期环境以重要的方式塑造表型发育，从而对表型和适应性产生持久影响。在爬行动物中，影响发育的早期环境因素之一是温度（称为“热发育可塑性”）。事实上，孵化期间的热环境已知会影响形态、生理和行为特征，其中一些对许多生态和进化过程具有重要意义。尽管如此，很少有研究试图综合和整理来自这一广泛而重要的研究领域的数据。在这里，我们系统地回顾了爬行动物热发育可塑性的研究，围绕过去 50 年来塑造该领域的关键论文和发现进行组织。从这些论文中，我们引入了一个大型数据库（“爬行动物发育数据库”），其中包含 300 项研究中 9773 个特征平均值，这些研究检查了热发育可塑性。该数据集涵盖了一系列表型的数据，包括形态学、生理学、行为学和表现特征，以及所有主要爬行动物类群的生长速度、孵化持续时间、性别比和存活率（例如孵化成功率）。最后，从我们的文献综述和数据探索中，我们确定了与热发育可塑性相关的关键研究主题、实证研究中的重要差距，并展示了如何通过有针对性的实证、元分析和比较工作取得未来的进展。
