Wayne Sydney M, Norris M Christopher, Fargevieille Amélie, Cobb Kerry, Scruggs Cindy, Miracle Jocelyn, Herron Victoria, Hall Joshua M, Warner Daniel A
Auburn University Museum of Natural History, Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, USA.
CEFE, Univ Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France.
J Exp Zool A Ecol Integr Physiol. 2025 Jun;343(5):535-545. doi: 10.1002/jez.2906. Epub 2025 Jan 31.
Water availability has critical impacts on numerous physiological functions in all organisms and can have different effects across life stages. For example, water available to reproductive females can influence offspring production, and has the potential to influence how early-stage offspring (e.g., embryos) respond to moisture in their developmental environment. In this study, we use the brown anole lizard (Anolis sagrei) to examine the effects of water availability on reproductive investment. We tested the hypothesis that water available to mothers influences embryonic development under different levels of moisture in their incubation environment. We demonstrate that a substantial reduction in water availability to mothers (~70% reduction) has no observable effect on fecundity, egg size, or egg hydration. We also provide evidence that our water restriction to mothers does not influence how embryos respond to moisture conditions during egg incubation. However, moisture in the egg incubation substrate positively affected egg water uptake, egg hatching success and hatchling body size (but not hatchling hydration). Overall, our study shows that reproduction in adult female A. sagrei is robust to variation in water availability, but survival during early life stages is sensitive to this variable. Thus, the effect of water availability on different fitness components varies between life stages.
水分可利用性对所有生物体的众多生理功能都有至关重要的影响，并且在不同生命阶段可能产生不同的作用。例如，生殖期雌性可获得的水分会影响后代数量，并且有可能影响早期后代（如胚胎）对其发育环境中湿度的反应。在本研究中，我们以棕色安乐蜥（安乐蜥）为研究对象，来检验水分可利用性对生殖投资的影响。我们验证了这样一个假设：母亲可获得的水分会在不同湿度的孵化环境下影响胚胎发育。我们发现，母亲可获得的水分大幅减少（约减少70%）对繁殖力、卵大小或卵的水合作用均无明显影响。我们还提供证据表明，对母亲进行水分限制不会影响胚胎在卵孵化期间对湿度条件的反应。然而，卵孵化基质中的湿度对卵的水分吸收、卵的孵化成功率和幼体大小有积极影响（但对幼体的水合作用没有影响）。总体而言，我们的研究表明，成年雌性安乐蜥的繁殖对水分可利用性的变化具有较强的耐受性，但生命早期阶段的存活率对该变量较为敏感。因此，水分可利用性对不同适合度成分的影响在不同生命阶段有所不同。
