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Reproductive and fat body cycles of Tropidurus hispidus and Tropidurus semitaeniatus (Squamata, Tropiduridae) in a caatinga area of northeastern Brazil

2012; BioMed Central; Volume: 85; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4067/s0716-078x2012000300005

0717-6317

Leonardo Barros Ribeiro, Naisandra Bezerra Da Silva, Eliza María Xavier Freire,

Plant and animal studies

This study assessed the reproductive and fat body cycles of Tropidurus hispidus (Spix, 1825) and T. semitaeniatus (Spix, 1825) in an area of caatinga in the Seridó of Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil, from October 2006 to May 2008.In both species, the females were reproductively active from the middle of the dry season to the beginning of the rainy season.Female reproductive activity was infl uenced by precipitation, whereas males exhibited spermatozoa in their testes throughout the year, and their reproductive activity was not related to any of the climatic variables analyzed.Mean clutch size (± SD) was 8.1 ± 2.0 and 2.1 ± 0.6 eggs in T. hispidus and T. semitaeniatus, respectively, and was signifi cantly related to female body size only in T. hispidus.The fat stock varied inversely with reproductive activity in the two species, and there was no difference in fat body mass between females and males.The effects of precipitation on the length of the breeding season of these two Tropidurus species suggest that their reproductive cycles are related to the microclimatic conditions suitable for embryo development, as well as for the neonates' emergence and survival especially during the rainy season, which may offer greater food availability to the hatchlings.