Abstract: Animals have developed a variety of reproductive strategies. To better understand these strategies will not only provide insights into the evolution of animal reproductive mode, but also provide guidelines for more successful conservation managements and captive breeding programs for threatened or endangered species. Multiple paternity is an important reproductive strategy commonly occurred in reptiles, and at higher levels in major groups of reptiles. Especially for the majority of squamates, multiple paternity can be found in more than 50% of the clutches detected, which strongly suggests that there exists high level female promiscuity in the evolution of productive mode in these species. In this paper, the organizational structure, possible underlying mechanisms, and detection methods of multiple paternity were reviewed, and the prospects of related research were discussed.

Key words: land-use type, temperature, humidity, soil respiration, Q₁₀.