Figure 42.6

Figure 42.6: Climate Warming Stresses Spiny Lizards Barry Sinervo and colleagues wanted to know whether climate warming will stress Mexican blue spiny lizards (Sceloporus serrifer) by reducing the number of hours they can remain outside their burrows without overheating. These lizards feed only during daytime and retreat to their cool burrows when their body temperature gets too high (see Figure 29.8). In 2008, the researchers conducted experiments in four locations in Mexico where these lizards had been found in 1975. Climate records indicated that the four locations did not warm at the same rate between 1975 and 2008, perhaps because they differ in such things as proximity to the ocean, elevation above sea level, and latitude.^a