Egg incubation temperature affects habitat use of adult lizards in a heterogeneous environment

Do environmental conditions during embryonic development influence the ways in which an animal selects among alternative habitat types later in life? We studied an Australian lizard, the jacky dragon (Amphibolurus muricatus), to test the hypothesis that developmental temperatures affect adult habitat choice, and to explore links between habitat use and fitness. To address these aims, we incubated eggs under a range of ecologically relevant temperatures and quantified the effects of incubation temperatures on habitat choice by adult lizards (∼2 years after hatching) within field enclosures that contained low- and high-quality habitat patches. During the reproductive season, we quantified each lizard’s habitat choice, movements, and perch heights, as well as two fitness correlates (growth rate, reproductive success). Cool incubation temperatures resulted in adults that moved more frequently and perched lower than did those from warmer incubation temperatures. Moreover, individuals that had developed at an intermediate incubation temperature used high-quality habitat more frequently than did those from either cool or warm incubation treatments. Lizard behavior also shifted seasonally, with the animals increasingly using high-quality habitats and perching higher but moving less as the reproductive season progressed. Despite these long-term effects of developmental temperature on adult behavior, the only variable strongly associated with both growth and reproductive success was body size rather than behavioral traits. These results highlight the ability of embryonic environments to influence adult behaviors in ways that modify the distribution of organisms across heterogeneous landscapes.