The cost-of-living squeeze
How do individual responses to temperature scale up to populations? Western fence lizards Mark–recapture Thermal mapping Biophysical modeling
The question
Warmer temperatures raise the metabolic cost of living. Whether animals can pay that cost depends on the thermal quality of their territories and the food available to them.
Approach
Three years of mark–recapture on two western fence lizard populations at contrasting elevations in the Great Basin Desert (>900 individuals, >3,500 captures), combined with lab measurements of metabolic rate and high-resolution thermal landscapes.
Mapping thermal landscapes
To know the thermal environment each lizard experiences, we need maps at the scale of a lizard’s territory, a few metres rather than kilometres. The R package throne combines data from 3D-printed operative temperature models with drone-based thermal imagery to produce fine-scale (≈0.5 m²), spatio-temporally complete thermal maps of both study sites.
Outputs
- Garcia-Costoya et al. The cost-of-living squeeze mediates selection on metabolic thermal reaction norms. In preparation. · On publications page
- Alujević, Garcia-Costoya et al. (2025). Using aerial thermography to map terrestrial thermal environments in unprecedented detail. Methods in Ecology and Evolution. DOI · throne · On publications page
- Alujević et al. (2023). 3D printed models are an accurate, cost-effective, and reproducible tool for quantifying terrestrial thermal environments. Journal of Thermal Biology. DOI · On publications page