Abstract
The relatively shorter growing seasons, lower temperatures, and severe winter weather associated with higher latitudes have long been assumed to limit the size of populations, and therefore to constrain the geographical ranges of species. In particular, conspicuous instances of catastrophic mortality during periods of severe winter weather suggest that losses to “winterkill” may often determine latitudinal range limits. However, actual comparisons of overwinter mortality among latitudinally separated populations have been exceedingly rare, and no such study has focused on temperate-zone lizards, one of the groups thought to experience greater overwinter mortality at higher latitudes. Here we examine latitudinal variation in overwinter mortality among seven populations of the side-blotched lizard (Uta stansburiana) along a transect spanning nearly 15° of latitude in the western United States. We used standard mark–recapture techniques to estimate daily mortality rates for the fall through spring (overwinte...
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