de Jong Madeleine, Chapple David G, Wong Bob B M
School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
J Therm Biol. 2025 Jul;131:104202. doi: 10.1016/j.jtherbio.2025.104202. Epub 2025 Jul 9.
As climate change progresses, species persistence will be influenced by the ability to adjust behaviour in response to rising temperatures. Thermal environments experienced in early development can have permanent effects on phenotype. However, it is largely unexplored whether these effects subsequently impact behavioural plasticity in response to thermal environments experienced after this early developmental period. To address this, we incubated delicate skink eggs (Lampropholis delicata) across three temperature treatments and quantified activity, microhabitat choice, and dispersal in mild and hot environments when skinks reached four to six weeks of age. Effects of incubation and thermal environment, as well as their interaction, were sex- and behaviour-specific. Differences in incubation temperature affected behavioural variation in response to thermal environment most strongly for activity, followed by dispersal, with no effect on microhabitat use. Males were the most plastic sex. Hot-incubated males had the greatest increase in activity and cool-incubated males dispersed further in a hot environment. Mild-incubated males were also the most dispersive compared to other male incubation groups. In contrast, females did not differ as often between incubation treatments or thermal environments. These results highlight sex-dependent effects of developmental temperature on behavioural plasticity, indicating climate change may impact males and females differently. If these effects result in sex-specific effects on survival, there may be implications for population growth and dynamics with a changing climate.
随着气候变化的加剧，物种的存续将受到其应对气温上升时行为调整能力的影响。早期发育过程中所经历的热环境会对表型产生永久性影响。然而，这些影响随后是否会对早期发育阶段之后所经历的热环境下的行为可塑性产生影响，在很大程度上尚未得到探索。为了解决这个问题，我们将细脆石龙子（Lampropholis delicata）的卵在三种温度处理下进行孵化，并在石龙子长到四到六周大时，对其在温和与炎热环境中的活动、微生境选择和扩散情况进行了量化。孵化温度和热环境的影响，以及它们之间的相互作用，在性别和行为方面存在特异性。孵化温度的差异对活动方面对热环境的行为变化影响最为强烈，其次是扩散，对微生境利用没有影响。雄性是可塑性最强的性别。在炎热环境中，孵化温度高的雄性活动增加最多，而孵化温度低的雄性扩散得更远。与其他雄性孵化组相比，孵化温度适中的雄性也是扩散性最强的。相比之下，雌性在孵化处理或热环境之间的差异则不那么常见。这些结果凸显了发育温度对行为可塑性的性别依赖性影响，表明气候变化对雄性和雌性的影响可能不同。如果这些影响导致对生存的性别特异性影响，那么随着气候的变化，可能会对种群增长和动态产生影响。
