The Anoline Lizard Specialist Group has been formed to gather information and help plan action on the conservation of anoles. Interested? Contact the organizers at anolinelizardsg@gmail.com or check out www.anolisconservation.org.
Year: 2012 Page 19 of 47
Ray Huey and Luisa Otero in front of their poster
Anole Annals has previously had a number of posts on the exciting ongoing project in Puerto Rico examining climate change and thermal biology of anoles. Last night, Luisa Otero presented the results of one aspect of the project, examining the reproductive biology of Anolis cristatellus in a forest and an adjacent (i.e., across the street) open habitat. Previous work by Ray Huey (specifically, his dissertation research in the 1970s) showed that in the open in lowland Puerto Rico, crested anoles are able to thermoregulate and maintain a high and constant body temperature, but in the forest, where good sunspots are scarce, anoles don’t thermoregulate and have lower temperatures.
Luisa’s work confirmed that this pattern has not changed even as Puerto Rico has warmed in recent years–open habitats are still thermally preferable for crested anoles. The exciting new twist is that Luisa examined the reproductive rate of the lizards. Every month of the year, more female anoles are gravid in the open habitat, but this result is particularly striking in the winter, when reproduction slows down in the open, but seems to cease entirely in the forest. Hence, differences in thermal biology do appear to have strong effects on individual fitness and presumably population dynamics, and, at least for now, global warming has not changed the relative suitability of different habitats.
Two posters presented at last night’s session examined how anoles respond to predators. In one, Lisa Cantwell of the University of Tennessee conducted a laboratory study on A. sagrei in which she played different bird calls to see if they would respond differently to predators versus non-predators. And, indeed they do, as the graph on the left shows–compare in particular panels c and d, showing that the behavior exhibited depended on which bird call they heard. The next step in the research, now underway as Lisa’s doctoral research (this started as an undergrad project!), is to take this work into the field to study free-ranging anoles.
Anoles beware–this guy’s as bad as he looks.
The second project was also the result of undergraduate research, this time Chris Peterson, who presented research conducted at the La Selva Biological Research Station in Costa Rica as part of an OTS course. Chris and a colleague presented the ground dwelling Anolis humilis with either one spider, a prey species, or two spiders, both the prey and another spider that actually–horrors–eats anoles. They wanted to see whether they were less likely to attack the prey spider in the presence of the predatory one and whether the size of the prey influenced the decision to attack in the presence of the predator. Results seemed to confirm these predictions: the anoles were more likely to attack in the absence of the predator, and when they did attack, it was usually in the presence of a larger prey spider (when alone, size of the prey did not influence likelihood to go for it).
One final tangent–note that the title of this poster uses the generic name Norops. Rumors are swirling here in Vancouver that a new paper is about to appear and reignite the battle over anole nomenclature with a new proposal to split Anolis into multiple genera. Stay tuned!
It’s all there if you magnify the image!
In recent years, the Central American species A. cupreus has been split into six species. Jenny Gubler, working in Kirsten Nicholson’s lab at Central Michigan, presented a poster on the results of a genetic analysis of variation in this group. Examining mitochondrial DNA, she found support for the monophyly of the entire group and for existence of A. dariense, but that A. villai belongs within that species. Biogeographically, a clear separation is seen between those on the Pacific and Atlantic sides of the continental mountain range chains, and the clade is arrayed from north (basal) to south (highly nested), in support of previous work.
We’re now at the halfway point in the World Congress, and so far its been fabulous. As noted previously, most of the anole action is backloaded into the last two days, especially Monday, which explains in part the radio silence on AA thus far. The other reasons for the lack of reportage are that, first, the meeting has been non-stop, leaving little time for posting and, second, that many of AA’s contributors spent all yesterday afternoon in the inaugural meeting of the Anoline Lizard Specialist Group, discussing anole conservation issues, and thus missed a number of anole talks. We’ll hear more about ALGS later, and hopefully other WCH attendees will jump into the void and tell us what we missed yesterday.
Your intrepid correspondent did sneak out of the ALGS meeting to catch one talk yesterday. Joe-Felix Bienentreu of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt reported on his studies of the A. pachypus species complex in Central America. In recent years, the group has been split into five species; Bienentreu focused on variation in pachypus itself, which occurs in Costa Rica and western Panama. Within this range, the species shows considerable variation in dewlap color, with some red, some yellow, and some containing both; in all, five groups were initially identified based on dewlap color. An examination of 40 scale and morphological characters for more than 200 specimens across this range led to grouping the first initial groups into two main groups. Genetic analysis with mitochondrial DNA is partially congruent with these groups, but shows some discrepancies.
More from Janson Jones on the invasion of Valdosta, Georgia by brown anoles. He previously reported their appearance earlier this summer, but now there’s an unexpected new twist.
After a slow start (believe it? An anole-less first day), the anole talks begin today. There were a couple of omissions and changed times in the previous list, so hopefully all talks and posters are included and correctly listed here. Notably, Dave Steinberg’s talk on head-bobbing was not included in the previous list; he talks today at 1630. I’ve rearranged the talks into chronological order. Two observations become apparent: first, the conference organizers have cleverly backloaded the schedule to keep people from leaving the conference early. There are 9 anole talks on Monday, as opposed to 4 today, 1 on Saturday and 2 on Sunday. Second, some tough decisions are going to have to be made, as there are four occasions in which two talks are scheduled at the same time. Bummer. Here they are:
Stuart, Yoel – Session 35 Friday 14:45, “A real-time test of a classic hypothesis: rapid, replicated character displacement in Anolis carolinensis following invasion by a congeneric competitor”
Bienentreu, Joe-Felix – Session 42, Friday 15:45 “Taxonomy and phylogeography of the Anolis pachypus complex (Squamata: Iguania: Dactyloidae)”
Warner, Daniel – Session 35 Friday 16:45, “Spatial and temporal variation in phenotypic selection after experimental introduction in the lizard Anolis sagrei”
Kolbe, Jason – Session 35 Friday 16:45, “Adaptation and plasticity during Anolis lizard introductions”
Losos, Jonathan – Session 58 Saturday 9:15, “Natural History of the Little-Known Horned Anole of Ecuador, Anolis proboscis, and its equally little-known relative, Phenacosaurus orcesii”
Mahler, D. Luke – Session 89 Sunday 11:30, “Discovery of a short-limbed giant Anolis from Hispaniola supports a deterministic model of island evolution and community assembly”
Wollenberg Valero, Katharina – Session 98 Sunday 15:30, “Diversification within adaptive radiations: the case of Hispaniolan trunk-ground anoles”
Ingram, Travis – Session 130 Monday 14:00, “A new comparative method that does not require pre-assigned ecomorph categories confirms exceptional morphological convergence in Caribbean”
Castañeda, Maria del Rosario – Session 130 Monday 14:15, “Multivariate analysis of the morphological component of ecomorphology in mainland Anolis lizards (Dactyloa clade)”
Powell, Brian – Session 130 Monday 14:30, “Brain Evolution Across the Puerto Rican Anole Radiation”
Crawford, Nicholas – Session 132 Monday 14:45, “The genetics of colorful pigmentation in Anolis lizards”
Harrison, Alexis – Session 130 Monday 14:45, “Correlated evolution of microhabitat, morphology, and behavior in West Indian Anolis lizards: A test of the ecomorph hypothesis”
Schneider, Christopher – Session 130 Monday 15:45, “The genetic basis of phenotypic variation and divergence in Anolis marmoratus”
Leal, Manuel – Session 129 Monday 15:45 “Behavioral flexibility and problem‐solving in lizards”
Steinberg, David – Session 39 Friday 1630 “Heads‐up: signal modulation and receiver distance in anoline lizards”
Sherratt, Emma – Session 130 Monday 16:45, “The deep history of Anolis habitat specialists”
Friday Posters: Castañeda, Maria del Rosario – Poster board 171, “Anolis lizards in the Encyclopedia of Life”
Gubler, Jenny – Poster board 176, “Investigation of the Evolutionary Relationships Among Species of the Anolis cupreus Complex”
Saturday Posters: Otero, Luisa – Poster board 132, “Habitat influence on annual reproductive cycle of Anolis cristatellus in Puerto Rico”
Cantwell, Lisa – Poster board 108, “Response of Anolis sagrei to Acoustic Calls from Predatory and Non-predatory Birds”
Sunday Posters: Mahler, D. Luke – Poster board 336, “A new organization dedicated to the conservation of Anolis lizards: The Anoline Lizard Specialist Group”
Rubio-Rocha, Laura C. – Poster board 396, “Continuous reproduction under a bimodal precipitation regime in a high elevation anole (Anolis mariarum) from Antioquia, Colombia”
Rubio-Rocha, Laura C. – Poster board 397, “Geographic variation in the lower temperature tolerance in the invasive brown anole, Anolis sagrei and the native green anole, Anolis carolinensis”
Vega, Sondra – Poster board 402, “Omnivory in Puerto Rican Anolis lizards“
The Dutch Caribbean Natural Alliance has put up a nice webpage on the endemic anole of Saba, Anolis sabanus. The page is full of information and points out that the species is quite common on Saba, contrary to rumors swirling around the internet that it is rare–rumors started, I think, by breeders trying to increase the value of their stock.
The ribbon cutting for WCH7 in Vancouver is hours away, and it promises to be a grand occasion. The best and the brightest of herpetology will be there–a month ago, registration already topped 1600. Needless to say, the highlight of the meeting will be the talks and posters on anoles, 24 in all. In June, Emma Sherratt provided the list, but it’s worth re-posting, with the addition of one newly discovered talk (which didn’t use the words “anole” or “Anolis” in the title, and thus was missed). And, to whet your appetite, we provide links to previous AA posts on some of these talks. Don’t miss all the action, either live in Vancouver, or virtually here in AA‘s pages:
“You haven’t lived ’til you’ve seen little girls in tiaras & sashes racing their anole lizards & screeeaming.” A tweet like that demands attention, so Anole Annals looked into it. Turns out that as part of the Louisiana Corn Festival, held every year in Bunkie, Louisiana, there is a lizard race featuring anoles. Anole Annals learned of this yearly event in early June and sure enough, a quick look at thetowntalk.com confirmed that the event was on again this year: “Be sure to be on hand for the lizard races at 2:30 (bring your own lizard); and stick around for live music and street dancing.”
So, Anole Annals settled back and waited for the news reports and Youtube postings. The appointed day came and went. And…nothing. No googleable photos. No newspaper accounts. Not a single video. Surely there must be a record of this wonderful event somewhere. We’ll keep looking.