Desert lizards modulate nutritional responses to match seasonal biological needs.

ABSTRACT: Animals in extreme environments such as deserts experience severe seasonal fluctuations in abiotic conditions and resources. Under these conditions, they must obtain macronutrients in optimal amounts and ratios to meet their nutritional requirements, which themselves vary with seasonal changes in physiological and life-history processes. To understand whether nutritional intakes and retention align with key life-history events across seasons, we examined the nutritional ecology of the desert-dwelling lizard, Saara hardwickii. We first measured seasonal variation in the quantity and quality of plants available for these herbivorous lizards. By combining field observations of foraging behaviour with elemental analysis, we determined the carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) levels in dietary in

SUBMITTER: Joshi M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7618820 | biostudies-literature | 2026 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature