Divergent effects of climate change on the egg-laying opportunity of species in cold and warm regions

Climate warming can substantially impact embryonic development and juvenile growth in oviparous species. Estimating the overall impacts of climate warming on oviparous reproduction is difficult because egg-laying events happen throughout the reproductive season. Successful egg laying requires the completion of embryonic development as well as hatching timing conducive to offspring survival and energy accumulation. We propose a new metric—egg-laying opportunity (EO)—to estimate the annual hours during which a clutch of freshly laid eggs yields surviving offspring that store sufficient energy for overwintering. We estimated the EO within the distribution of a model species, Sceloporus undulatus, under recent climate condition and a climate-warming scenario by combining microclimate data, developmental functions, and biophysical models. We predicted that EO will decline as the climate warms at 74.8% of 11,407 sites. Decreasing hatching success and offspring energy accounted for more lost EO hours (72.6% and 72.9%) than the occurrence of offspring heat stress (59.9%). Nesting deeper (at a depth of 12 cm) may be a more effective behavioral adjustment for retaining EO than using shadier (50% shade) nests because the former fully mitigated the decline of EO under the considered warming scenario at more sites (66.1%) than the latter (28.3%). We advocate for the use of EO in predicting the impacts of climate warming on oviparous animals because it encapsulates the integrative impacts of climate warming on all stages of reproductive life history.     

渤海湾海丰盐场卤虫种类组成与生殖特性

1999年7～10月对渤海湾海丰盐场卤虫自然种群的种类组成和生殖特性进行了研究，结果表明：(1)原来仅有孤雌生殖种群，如今孤雌生殖卤虫与两性生殖卤虫Artemia franciscana共存，且在8～10月份外来种A.franciscana占主要部分。(2)温度是影响休眠卵产生的重要环境因子。实验期间温度降低，卵生比例升高，到9、10月份已全部为卵生。(3)随温度降低，怀后代数有上升的趋势。多数月份卤虫怀后代数与盐度负相关。