Warming Skews Alligator Sex Ratios

A lab study of 145 American alligator eggs found that just a one‑to‑two degree Celsius difference in incubation temperature flips offspring sex, and brief heat spikes push outcomes toward females. With nest temperatures expected to rise under climate change, local populations could become strongly sex‑biased, threatening reproduction and ecosystem roles. — Small increases in environmental temperature can change basic demographic properties of wildlife, creating concrete conservation, management, and human‑wildlife implications as the climate warms.