Quinn

A figure from Quinn’s poster, showing alternative possible energy budgets in green anoles (click for a better view).

Animals allocate energy that they acquire to a variety of bodily functions and activities. Some of the more important allocations are those toward metabolism and growth, though the relative allocations to these is unclear. McKenzie Quinn, an undergraduate student working with Michele Johnson at Trinity University, presented her work in the third poster session on the dynamic energy budget of green anole lizards. She quantified food intake, excretion, growth, and resting metabolic rate (RMR, the energy required for basic maintenance) of individual lizards over 40 days to create a predictive model to describe how they allocate energy. If metabolism receives a large allocation, then RMR and/or body mass are expected to be significant predictors of energy use. On the other hand, if growth is more important, then aspects of body length (snout-vent length, SVL) are expected to be better predictors.

Interestingly, she found that RMR and body mass were not included in the best model of energy use. Instead, their model building (with AIC criteria, if you’re interested) showed that a decreasing nonlinear function of SVL was the best model. This suggests that metabolic functions are a small, non-significant part of these lizards’ dynamic energy budget. This work was conducted on adult males, so it will of course be interesting to see how this approach might apply to younger individuals or females. However, this is useful information to know for those who wonder how anoles allocate energy in their daily lives.

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