Climate change threatens survival of common lizards

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-10/p-cct102215.php

Public Release: 26-Oct-2015
Climate change threatens survival of common lizards
PLOS

While there is no doubt that climate change is affecting many organisms, some species might be more sensitive than others. Reptiles, whose body temperature depends directly on environmental temperature, may be particularly vulnerable. Scientists have now shown experimentally that lizards cope very poorly with the climate predicted for the year 2100.

In a new study, publishing in the Open Access journal PLOS Biology on October 26th, Elvire Bestion, Julien Cote and colleagues examined the consequences of a 2°C warmer climate on the persistence of populations of common lizards (Zootoca vivipara), a widespread European reptile. Their results show that many common lizard populations could disappear rapidly as a consequence of such warmer temperatures.

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"Although these results might seem dramatic, we do not predict extinction of common lizards at the scale of the species, but we suggest that populations at the southern edge of their range of distribution might particularly suffer from warmer climates", adds Julien Cote, biologist at the Laboratoire Evolution et Diversité Biologique (France) and co-lead author of the study. Indeed, comparisons of experimental conditions to climatic conditions encountered by European populations of common lizards show that warmer climates might threaten between 14 and 30 % of European populations depending on the carbon emission scenario.

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