Climatic changes and fossoriality: implications for the subterranean herpetofauna

Abstract

Several studies have discussed the possible influence of global warming on biological traits, but most of the predictions ignore likely effects of spatial and temporal heterogeneity associated with different scales of temperature change, assuming therefore that this impact would be homogeneous in a given environment. However, the same habitat may have a peculiar dynamics of temperature fluctuation;for example, subterranean micro-habitats exhibit daily and seasonal temperature fluctuations very peculiar, although most speculations focus on the herpetofauna that inhabits the surface. The generalizations about the forecasts of climatic changes and global warming should therefore be cautious and also incorporate particularities of the species and their respective thermal relationships with microenvironmental conditions.