Seasonal shifts in clutch size and egg size in the side-blotched lizard, Uta stansburiana Baird and Girard

There is evidence that the side-blotched lizard, Uta stansburiana , and some other organisms of temperate latitudes produce fewer and larger eggs as the reproductive season progresses. There are at least two models that could explain this phenomenon.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/47737/1/442_2004_Article_BF00376891.pd

Life-History Evolution on Tropidurinae Lizards: Influence of Lineage, Body Size and Climate

The study of life history variation is central to the evolutionary theory. In many ectothermic lineages, including lizards, life history traits are plastic and relate to several sources of variation including body size, which is both a factor and a life history trait likely to modulate reproductive parameters. Larger species within a lineage, for example tend to be more fecund and have larger clutch size, but clutch size may also be influenced by climate, independently of body size. Thus, the study of climatic effects on lizard fecundity is mandatory on the current scenario of global climatic change. We asked how body and clutch size have responded to climate through time in a group of tropical lizards, the Tropidurinae, and how these two variables relate to each other. We used both traditional and phylogenetic comparative methods. Body and clutch size are variable within Tropidurinae, and both traits are influenced by phylogenetic position. Across the lineage, species which evolved larger size produce more eggs and neither trait is influenced by temperature components. A climatic component of precipitation, however, relates to larger female body size, and therefore seems to exert an indirect relationship on clutch size. This effect of precipitation on body size is likely a correlate of primary production. A decrease in fecundity is expected for Tropidurinae species on continental landmasses, which are predicted to undergo a decrease in summer rainfall

Testing cost-benefit models of parental care evolution using lizard populations differing in the expression of maternal care

Parents are expected to evolve tactics to care for eggs or offspring when providing such care increases fitness above the costs incurred by this behavior. Costs to the parent include the energetic demands of protecting offspring, delaying future fecundity, and increased risk of predation. We used cost-benefit models to test the ecological conditions favoring the evolution of parental care, using lizard populations that differ in whether or not they express maternal care. We found that predators play an important role in the evolution of maternal care because: (1) evolving maternal care is unlikely when care increases predation pressure on the parents; (2) maternal care cannot evolve under low levels of predation pressure on both parents and offspring; and (3) maternal care evolves only when parents are able to successfully defend offspring from predators without increasing predation risk to themselves. Our studies of one of the only known vertebrate species to exhibit interpopulation differences in the expression of maternal care provide clear support for some of the hypothesized circumstances under which maternal care should evolve (e.g., when nests are in exposed locations, parents are able to defend the eggs from predators, and egg incubation periods are brief), but do not support others (e.g., when nest-sites are scarce, life history strategies are "risky", reproductive frequency is low, and environmental conditions are harsh). We conclude that multiple pathways can lead to the evolution of parental care from a non-caring state, even in a single population of a widespread species