Reduced Water Availability to Mothers and Embryos Has Little Effect on Offspring Phenotypes in an Invasive Lizard

Abstract

Water availability has critical impacts on numerous physiological functions in all organisms and can have different effects across life stages. For example, water available to reproductive females can influence offspring production, and has the potential to influence how early-stage offspring (e.g., embryos) respond to moisture in their developmental environment. In this study, we use the brown anole lizard (Anolis sagrei) to examine the effects of water availability on reproductive investment. We tested the hypothesis that water available to mothers influences embryonic development under different levels of moisture in their incubation environment. We demonstrate that a substantial reduction in water availability to mothers (~70% reduction) has no observable effect on fecundity, egg size, or egg hydration. We also provide evidence that our water restriction to mothers does not influence how embryos respond to moisture conditions during egg incubation. However, moisture in the egg incubation substrate positively affected egg water uptake, egg hatching success and hatchling body size (but not hatchling hydration). Overall, our study shows that reproduction in adult female A. sagrei is robust to variation in water availability, but survival during early life stages is sensitive to this variable. Thus, the effect of water availability on different fitness components varies between life stages.