Why do most tropical animals reproduce seasonally? Testing hypotheses on an Australian snake

Ecology
G P Brown, Richard Shine

Abstract

Most species reproduce seasonally, even in the tropics where activity occurs year-round. Squamate reptiles provide ideal model organisms to clarify the ultimate (adaptive) reasons for the restriction of reproduction to specific times of year. Females of almost all temperate-zone reptile species produce their eggs or offspring in the warmest time of the year, thereby synchronizing embryogenesis with high ambient temperatures. However, although tropical reptiles are freed from this thermal constraint, most do not reproduce year-round. Seasonal reproduction in tropical reptiles might be driven by biotic factors (e.g., peak periods of predation on eggs or hatchlings, or food for hatchlings) or abiotic factors (e.g., seasonal availability of suitably moist incubation conditions). Keelback snakes (Tropidonophis mairii, Colubridae) in tropical Australia reproduce from April to November, but with a major peak in May-June. Our field studies falsify hypotheses that invoke biotic factors as explanations for this pattern: the timing of nesting does not minimize predation on eggs, nor maximize food availability or survival rates for hatchlings. Instead, our data implicate abiotic factors: female keelbacks nest most intensely soon after the ...Continue Reading

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Citations

Jul 20, 2007·Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences·Richard Shine, Gregory P Brown
Apr 17, 2010·Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society·Caitlin M Dmitriew
Sep 10, 2008·Conservation Biology : the Journal of the Society for Conservation Biology·Adam H FreedmanThomas B Smith
Apr 14, 2016·Royal Society Open Science·Gregory P Brown, Richard Shine
Mar 27, 2018·Journal of Experimental Zoology. Part A, Ecological and Integrative Physiology·Gregory P Brown, Richard Shine
Oct 19, 2017·Integrative and Comparative Biology·Øystein Varpe
Jan 20, 2019·Tropical Medicine & International Health : TM & IH·Mikaelle Kaline Bezerra da CostaEliza Maria Xavier Freire
Apr 13, 2019·The Journal of Experimental Biology·Mark R Sandfoss, Harvey B Lillywhite
Jul 15, 2016·Anais Da Academia Brasileira De Ciências·Marluci M RebelatoAlexandro M Tozetti
Oct 29, 2017·Journal of Evolutionary Biology·R ShineM Olsson

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