Natural populations of ectothermic oviparous vertebrates typically experience thermal variability in their incubation environment. Yet an overwhelming number of laboratory studies incubate animals under constant thermal conditions that cannot capture natural thermal variability. Here, we systematically searched for studies that incubated eggs of ectothermic vertebrates, including both fishes and herpetofauna, under thermally variable regimes. We ultimately developed a compendium of 66 studies that used thermally variable conditions for egg incubation. In this review, we qualitatively discuss key findings from literature in the compendium, including the phenotypic effects resulting from different patterns of thermally variable incubation, as well as the ontogenetic persistence of these effects. We also describe a physiological framework for contextualizing some of these effects, based on thermal performance theory. Lastly, we highlight key gaps in our understanding of thermally variable incubation and offer suggestions for future studies.

中文翻译：

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外温卵孵化过程中的热变异性：合成和框架

外生卵生脊椎动物的自然种群通常在其孵化环境中经历热变化。然而，绝大多数的实验室研究都是在无法捕获自然热变异性的恒定热条件下孵化动物。在这里，我们系统地搜索了在热可变条件下温育诸如卵和疱疹性鼻炎等外温脊椎动物卵的研究。我们最终开发了66个研究的纲要，这些研究使用热可变条件进行卵温育。在这篇综述中，我们定性地讨论了简编中文献的主要发现，包括由不同模式的热变量孵育产生的表型效应，以及这些效应的个体存在性。我们还根据热性能理论描述了一种生理框架，用于将这些效应中的某些背景化。最后，我们重点介绍了我们对热变量孵育的理解中的主要差距，并为以后的研究提供了建议。