Amanda K Pettersen, Nathalie Feiner, Daniel W A Noble, Geoffrey M While, Tobias Uller, Charlie K Cornwallis
{"title":"Maternal behavioral thermoregulation facilitated evolutionary transitions from egg laying to live birth.","authors":"Amanda K Pettersen, Nathalie Feiner, Daniel W A Noble, Geoffrey M While, Tobias Uller, Charlie K Cornwallis","doi":"10.1093/evlett/qrad031","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Live birth is a key innovation that has evolved from egg-laying ancestors over 100 times in reptiles. However, egg-laying lizards and snakes can have preferred body temperatures that are lethal to developing embryos, which should select against prolonged egg retention. Here, we demonstrate that thermal mismatches between mothers and offspring are widespread across the squamate phylogeny. This mismatch is resolved by gravid females adjusting their body temperature towards the thermal optimum of their embryos. We find that the same response occurs in both live-bearing and egg-laying species, despite the latter only retaining embryos during the early stages of development. Importantly, phylogenetic reconstructions suggest this thermoregulatory behavior in gravid females evolved in egg-laying species prior to the evolution of live birth. Maternal thermoregulatory behavior, therefore, bypasses the constraints imposed by a slowly evolving thermal physiology and has likely been a key facilitator in the repeated transition to live birth.</p>","PeriodicalId":48629,"journal":{"name":"Evolution Letters","volume":"7 5","pages":"351-360"},"PeriodicalIF":3.4000,"publicationDate":"2023-07-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10565886/pdf/","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Evolution Letters","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/evlett/qrad031","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2023/10/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Live birth is a key innovation that has evolved from egg-laying ancestors over 100 times in reptiles. However, egg-laying lizards and snakes can have preferred body temperatures that are lethal to developing embryos, which should select against prolonged egg retention. Here, we demonstrate that thermal mismatches between mothers and offspring are widespread across the squamate phylogeny. This mismatch is resolved by gravid females adjusting their body temperature towards the thermal optimum of their embryos. We find that the same response occurs in both live-bearing and egg-laying species, despite the latter only retaining embryos during the early stages of development. Importantly, phylogenetic reconstructions suggest this thermoregulatory behavior in gravid females evolved in egg-laying species prior to the evolution of live birth. Maternal thermoregulatory behavior, therefore, bypasses the constraints imposed by a slowly evolving thermal physiology and has likely been a key facilitator in the repeated transition to live birth.
期刊介绍:
Evolution Letters publishes cutting-edge new research in all areas of Evolutionary Biology.
Available exclusively online, and entirely open access, Evolution Letters consists of Letters - original pieces of research which form the bulk of papers - and Comments and Opinion - a forum for highlighting timely new research ideas for the evolutionary community.