Lizards in the Cold

Topic
Resource Type
Description
This activity guides the analysis of a published scientific figure from a study that investigated how anole lizards may adapt to extremely cold temperatures.
Extreme climate events can drive evolutionary changes in populations. In this study, scientists investigated how winter storms in the southern United States affected local populations of anole lizards. Figure 1 shows the locations of the populations in the study, and Figure 2 (shown above) shows how the cold tolerance of the populations changed over time. Cold tolerance was measured using the critical thermal minimum, the temperature at which the lizards lost their coordination.
The “Educator Materials” document includes captioned figures, background information, figure interpretation, and discussion questions. The “Student Handout” includes captioned figures and background information.
The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive
Student Learning Targets
- Analyze and interpret data from a scientific figure.
- Describe how extreme climate events, such as storms, can drive natural selection in populations.
Estimated Time
Key Terms
Anolis, cold tolerance, error bar, extreme climate event, line graph, lizard, map, polar vortex, scatter plot, standard error of the mean (SEM)
Primary Literature
Campbell-Staton, S. C., Z. A. Cheviron, N. Rochette, J. Catchen, J. B. Losos, and S. V. Edwards. “Winter storms drive rapid phenotypic, regulatory, and genomic shifts in the green anole lizard.” Science 357, 6350 (2017): 495–498. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aam5512.
Terms of Use
Please see the Terms of Use for information on how this resource can be used.
Accessibility Level (WCAG compliance)
Version History
NGSS (2013)
HS-LS4-3, HS-LS4-4, HS-LS4-5; SEP2, SEP4, SEP5
AP Biology (2019)
EVO-1.E, EVO-1.G, EVO-3.E; SP1, SP4
IB Biology (2016)
5.2
AP Environmental Science (2020)
Topic(s): 2.4, 2.6
Learning Objectives & Practices: ERT-2.F, ERT-2.H, SP2, SP5
Common Core (2010)
ELA.RST.9–12.7
Math.S-ID.2; MP2, MP5
Vision and Change (2009)
CC1; DP2, DP3