Over the last half-century, Anolis sagrei sagrei, a Cuban native, has become a global citizen. Likely as a stowaway in agricultural trade shipments, it has traveled to near-Cuba places like Florida, Jamaica, and Grand Cayman. It has gone as far Hawaii, Guam, and Taiwan. It is a stout lizard, males about 60mm long, brown in body color with a deep red dewlap bordered by a yellow margin. Jason Kolbe’s research documented the origin and spread of invasive populations of this subspecies around the globe.
Another subspecies of A. sagrei, A. sagrei luteosignifer, is endemic to Cayman Brac, the easternmost of the three Cayman Islands islands. On Brac, A. s. luteosignifer has evolved a mustard-yellow dewlap, in stark contrast to the red dewlap of A. s. sagrei.
On his last trip to Brac, Losos lab post-doc Thom Sanger noticed several unusual A. sagrei luteosignifer individuals with orange dewlaps. Because A. s. luteosignifer normally has yellow dewlaps, Thom hypothesized that there may be a previously unnoticed invasion of A. s. sagrei on Cayman Brac.
Alexis Harrison and I recently visited Cayman Brac to investigate whether A. s. sagrei individuals are on Cayman Brac, and if so, are they hybridizing with the native yellow-dewlapped subspecies?
From the 9th to the 14th of January, joined by Jonathan and Melissa Losos, we visited 19 sites across tiny Brac and captured 10-12 males per population to photograph and take spectrometric readings of their dewlaps. We’ve provided a few representative dewlap photos below. The dewlaps vary from dirty yellow to orange, and we found this variation in most populations on the island.
A representative yellow-dewlapped male
A representative orange-dewlapped male
Out of approximately 200 lizards examined, we only found one lizard that looked unambiguously like A. s. sagrei, pictured below. It has a dewlap with the deep red center and bright yellow margin that is the trademark of this invader. Genetic data will help us test whether this is indeed an A. s. sagrei individual.
Putative A. s. sagrei with a red dewlap
The presence of this A. s. sagrei individual suggests that there are others and that it is probable that individuals of this subspecies have been arriving to Cayman Brac regularly. Cayman Brac is supplied weekly by barge shipments from Grand Cayman, where A. s. sagrei has successfully established itself (probably from Cuba by way of Florida). A worker at the port told us that he’s seen all sorts of critters (e.g. snakes, spiders, iguanas, and more) skittering away from shipping containers that are unloaded from the barge onto Brac. Given the tendency for A. s. sagrei to be found in construction materials and potted plants, it is likely that it is among those critters being brought to Cayman Brac by the barge.
Are the orange dewlaps we found in Brac’s A. s. luteosignifer populations part of the natural color variation of that subspecies, or is the orange dewlap the result of hybridization with A. s. sagrei? If the two subspecies aren’t reproductively isolated, they could be hybridizing to produce the orange-dewlapped lizards.
We will use genetic tools to address whether A. s. sagrei genes are introgressing into the gene pool of the Cayman Brac subspecies. We collected tail tips from every lizard we caught on Cayman Brac during this trip, and we have access to A. s. luteosignifer tissues collected approximately 20 years ago by J. Losos. Moreover, Alexis and I are currently collecting tail tips from A. s. sagrei on Grand Cayman. We will use these tissue collections to test for a cryptic invasion of A. s. sagrei on Cayman Brac.
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Jonathan Losos
It would be great if someone had photographs of A. s. luteosignifer dewlaps from the past so we could see if the orange color was present historically. The biology of this subspecies is surprisingly little documented.
RMtzGr
1. the change in the coloration of dewlap can be due to a displacement of characters?
2. if outside the result of a hibridization between the two populations, that is expected molecularly? with DNAmt can be known this hibridization?
Rich Glor
Sounds like a cool project. You should check out Lourdes’s work on geographic variation in sagrei dewlap color across Cuba. There are certain populations that have fairly yellow dewlaps and some may exhibit comparable variation to what you’re seeing today on Cayman Brac. I mention this only to call attention to related work, not because I think Lourdes’s observations will challenge to the idea that A. s. sagrei has invaded Cayman Brac; this seems like a very plausible explanation for the degree of orange you’re seeing there today.
Jonathan Losos
Rich, to which work are you referring?
Rich Glor
I’m not sure that it was ever published. I just found an e-mail from back in 2004 where she notes that she’ll be presenting results of this work at the next symposium of zoology. I can’t find it right now, but I’m pretty sure she also distributed an abstract that summarized the main findings. Perhaps Kolbe knows more?
RMtzGr
1. the change in the coloration of dewlap can be due to a displacement of characters?
or
2. if outside the result of a hibridization between the two populations, that is expected molecularly? with DNAmt can be known this hibridization?
Yoel Stuart
Thanks Rich. I’ll look into it!
RMtzGr
1. the change in the coloration of dewlap can be due to a displacement of characters?
2. if outside the result of a hibridization between the two populations, that is expected molecularly? with DNAmt can be known this hibridization?
excuses me my questions but in my project of masters degree I tries to find simpatry in a group of filogenetic of continental anolis with the purpose of finding displacement of character among them, but in the places where it is predicted the sympatry I found the change of coloration in gula in anolis, with DNAmt it will deal to define to what of my species of study they belong, but I not yet do not discard the possibility of a hibridization, although me yet don’t know to make it.