Thermal ecology of Bolivian lizards of the genus Liolaemus: Will climate warming drive them to extinction?. Ignacio de la Riva Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales CSIC.

Título: Thermal ecology of Bolivian lizards of the genus Liolaemus: Will climate warming drive them to extinction?

Ponente: Ignacio de la Riva, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC.

Resumen:

The genus Liolaemus constitutes one of the most diverse groups of Neotropical lizards, inhabiting from coastal areas of southern South America to very high elevations in the Andes. As ectothermic animals, their ecology is strongly determined by climate variables that in turn can put them in peril if global warming reaches certain thresholds. Species in the highlands are often viviparous, a reproductive condition that makes them more vulnerable to increasing temperatures. We are investigating the thermal ecology of several species of Liolaemus in Bolivia, where the entire group is poorly known from a taxonomic standpoint. Our work focuses on an assemblage of four species in the southern part of the country and on the study of a rare, endemic species from the central Andes, which could be already being displaced upwards by climate warming.