Parasite burden in a short-lived chameleon, Furcifer labordi...

[kinyonga]

"Caged individuals of both sexes showed delayed senescence, reduced parasite burden and lived longer than their wild conspecifics"...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6812308/

 

[DocZ]

What do you think it is about their environment that leads them to take this short lived, fast reproduction strategy for species survival?

 

[kinyonga]

You said..."What do you think it is about their environment that leads them to take this short lived, fast reproduction strategy for species survival?"...maybe it's too harsh?

"It’s unclear why this species in particular has evolved in such an extreme way, but Karsten suggests that Madagascar’s harsh and highly seasonal environment may have been a contributing factor. In response to these unpredictable conditions, Labord’s chameleon appears to have compressed the majority of its life into a much stabler environment – its own egg"...
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mayfly-like-chameleon-lives-mostly-as-an-egg

"Life history theory predicts that species with shorter lifespan should show higher investments into growth and reproduction at the expense of immune defenses"...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213224419300975

"one female was capable of surviving until a second breeding season. Keeping F. labordi in cages under ambient conditions demonstrated that also males can also survive until the next season of activity under these conditions"...
https://www.researchgate.net/public...l_reptile_Labord's_chameleon_Furcifer_labordi

Maybe this will help...semelparous "A species that only reproduces once in its lifetime"...
https://www.chameleonforums.com/threads/labords-chameleon-shortest-life.99800/

 

[kinyonga]

More...
"The German group who reported the work from Kirindy joined forces with veterinary colleagues. They found that the parasite load in the alimentary canal increased dramatically during the last three months of life"...
https://zoologyweblog.blogspot.com/2020/05/why-and-how-does-annual-chameleon-die.html?m=1

"We suggest that environmental stress and the corresponding accelerated telomere attrition have profound effects on the lifespan of F. labordi in the wild, and identify physiological mechanisms potentially driving their relatively early senescence and mortality"...
https://scholars.uow.edu.au/display/publicationse255445