As the earth warms, populations will be faced with novel environments to which they may not be adapted. In the short-term, populations can be buffered against the negative effects, or maximise the beneficial effects, of such environmental change via phenotypic plasticity and, in the longer term, via adaptive evolution. However, the extent and direction of these population-level responses will be dependent on the degree to which responses vary among the individuals within them (i.e., within-population variation in plasticity), which is, itself, likely to vary among populations. Despite this, we have estimates of among-individual variation in plastic responses across multiple populations for only a few systems. This lack of data limits our ability to accurately predict the consequences of environmental change for population and species persistence. Here we utilised a 16-year dataset from climatically distinct populations of the viviparous skink Niveoscincus ocellatus tracking over 1200 litters from more than 600 females from each population to examine inter- and intra- population variability in the response of parturition date to environmental temperature. We found that these populations share a common population-mean reaction norm but differ in the degree to which reaction norms vary among individuals. These results suggest that even where populations share a common mean-level response we cannot assume that that they will be affected similarly by altered environmental conditions. If we are to accurately assess how changing climates will impact species and populations, we require estimates of how plastic responses vary both among and within populations.

中文翻译：

---

变化程度：胎生蜥蜴物候热反应规范的种群间和种群内变化

随着地球变暖，人们将面临他们可能无法适应的新环境。在短期内，可以通过表型可塑性和长期而言，通过适应性进化来缓冲这种环境变化的负面影响或最大化其有益影响。然而，这些群体水平反应的程度和方向将取决于反应在其中个体之间变化的程度（即群体内可塑性的变化），这本身可能在群体之间变化。尽管如此，我们仅对少数系统的多个群体的可塑性反应的个体间差异进行了估计。数据的缺乏限制了我们准确预测环境变化对种群和物种持久性的影响的能力。在这里，我们利用来自气候不同的胎生石龙子 Niveoscincus ocellatus 种群的 16 年数据集，跟踪每个种群 600 多只雌性的 1200 多窝幼崽，以检查分娩日期对环境温度的响应的种群间和种群内变异性。我们发现这些群体共享一个共同的群体均值反应范数，但个体之间反应范数的差异程度不同。这些结果表明，即使人群具有共同的平均水平响应，我们也不能假设它们会受到环境条件改变的类似影响。如果我们要准确评估气候变化将如何影响物种和种群，我们需要估计种群之间和种群内部的塑料反应如何变化。