Temporal partitioning of hatching, maturation, and surface activity by reptiles in Florida longleaf pine-wiregrass sandhills

Abstract

Temporal partitioning of life history traits among syntopic reptiles can facilitate co-occurrence, but may be influenced byenvironmental factors and evolutionary history. We used 24 years of continuous capture data in the Florida sandhills toevaluate the timing and duration of hatching, maturation and/or surface activity for ten reptile species, spanning multipleclutch strategies, taxonomic relationships, and habits. We hypothesised: i) species would differ in seasonal timing of hatchingand maturation; ii) hatching and maturation periods would be more seasonally-synchronised in fossorial than terrestrial orsemi-aquatic reptiles; iii) monthly and annual temperature anomalies would be positively related to hatching, maturation, andsurface activity anomalies, and iv) groupings of reptiles by clutch strategy, taxonomic relationship, and habit, would explainmore variation in the timing and duration of hatching and maturation than species alone. Seasonal timing of response variablesvaried widely among species. Hatching peaked for > 1 species during most calendar months. Maturation and surface activityperiods ranged from aseasonal to highly-seasonal among species. Hatching began 1.5 months earlier and was more prolongedfor terrestrial than fossorial species overall. Hatching peaked in early to mid-summer for terrestrial and fossorial species, andwinter for the semi-aquatic Kinosternon subrubrum. Terrestrial and fossorial species did not differ in average timing, duration,or overlap of maturation periods; semi-aquatic Liodytes pygaea matured more consistently across all seasons than otherspecies. Monthly temperature anomalies were negatively correlated with monthly maturation for Plestiodon egregius. Annualtemperature and precipitation anomalies were related to annual hatching, maturation, and surface activity trends for severalspecies. Taxonomic relationship, habit, and species explained some variation in hatching and maturation timing and duration.Our results illustrate the influence of environment and evolutionary relationships on the timing of important life history traits.

Citation

Button, Sky T. 2022. Temporal partitioning of hatching, maturation, and surface activity by reptiles in Florida longleaf pine-wiregrass sandhills. The Herpetological Journal. 32(3): 130-141. https://doi.org/10.33256/32.3.130141.