INTRODUCTION

Over the next 100 years, temperatures are predicted to rise approximately 2°C with dire predictions for the survival
of terrestrial species (IPCC 2007, Thomas et al. 2004). Recent studies (Huey et al. 2009, Deutsch et al. 2008) emphasize
that warming may have worse effects for species thermally adapted to function within a specific temperature range in the
tropics.
Specifically, I wanted to scrutinize what I see as a complication in what Huey et al. (2009) put forth: although there
is more risk for thermally-specialized species living in the tropics, the study grouped its specimen species, tropical lizards,
into a single category. I wanted to investigate whether there are behavioral and thermo-physiological differences between
lizards living in two different habitat types: forest versus open-habitat (Figure 1 and Figure 2).
Thermoregulation is a behavioral trait of species to maintain particular internal body temperatures for life
functions (Angilletta 2009). Kearney et al. (2009) recently put forth a study which determined that the impact of warming
on thermoregulation in part depends on the vegetation cover of a habitat.