Climate change overruns resilience conferred by temperature-dependent sex determination in sea turtles and threatens their survival

© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:Global change biology. - 1999. - 21(2015), 8 vom: 01. Aug., Seite 2980-8
1. Verfasser: Santidrián Tomillo, Pilar (VerfasserIn)
Weitere Verfasser: Genovart, Meritxell, Paladino, Frank V, Spotila, James R, Oro, Daniel
Format: Online-Aufsatz
Sprache:English
Veröffentlicht: 2015
Zugriff auf das übergeordnete Werk:Global change biology
Schlagworte:Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Dermochelys coriacea adaptive significance genotypic sex determination global warming leatherback turtles sex ratios temperature-dependent sex determination
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:© 2015 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
Temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD) is the predominant form of environmental sex determination (ESD) in reptiles, but the adaptive significance of TSD in this group remains unclear. Additionally, the viability of species with TSD may be compromised as climate gets warmer. We simulated population responses in a turtle with TSD to increasing nest temperatures and compared the results to those of a virtual population with genotypic sex determination (GSD) and fixed sex ratios. Then, we assessed the effectiveness of TSD as a mechanism to maintain populations under climate change scenarios. TSD populations were more resilient to increased nest temperatures and mitigated the negative effects of high temperatures by increasing production of female offspring and therefore, future fecundity. That buffered the negative effect of temperature on the population growth. TSD provides an evolutionary advantage to sea turtles. However, this mechanism was only effective over a range of temperatures and will become inefficient as temperatures rise to levels projected by current climate change models. Projected global warming threatens survival of sea turtles, and the IPCC high gas concentration scenario may result in extirpation of the studied population in 50 years
Beschreibung:Date Completed 05.05.2016
Date Revised 22.07.2015
published: Print-Electronic
Citation Status MEDLINE
ISSN:1365-2486
DOI:10.1111/gcb.12918