Where do you work and what do you do? 

I’m a biologist and environmental scientist at Princeton University in New Jersey. I lead a research group that tries to understand how the complex web of interactions between different species—including humans—shapes the world around us. My group does a lot of work in Africa, but we also work in the Caribbean, on anoles.

What aspects of anole biology do you study, and what have you learned? 

In 2011, I started a long-term experiment in the Bahamas, aiming to understand how predators influence the ability of different anole species to coexist on islands. We find that in the presence of predators, anoles alter their behavior to reduce their likelihood of being eaten. This can alter the competitive relationships between different anole species—the remarkable ‘niche partitioning’ of anoles, with different species are specialized to live in different parts of the habitat, becomes disrupted. Competition becomes more intense, which can reduce the likelihood of multiple anole species being able to coexist. We are continuing to follow this experiment to learn about both the ecological and evolutionary consequences of introducing predators onto islands. 

How and why did you start studying anoles?

I started studying anoles when I had a pet green anole as a kid in North Carolina. I was particularly interested in figuring out what kinds of foods it would eat, so that I could keep it alive, which I did by experimenting with different insects that I caught outside. I found that my pet anole really liked to eat beetle larvae that I collected from rotting acorns. These days, my lab studies anole diets using a technique known as DNA metabarcoding, wherein we sequence the insect DNA in anole fecal samples and use those DNA sequences to identify the insect species that the anoles have been eating. 

What do you love most about studying anoles? 

What I love most about anoles is that they provide a beautiful opportunity to study some of the most important unsolved mysteries in ecology and evolutionary biology. How does biological diversity arise? How is it maintained? What are the mechanisms by which different species manage to coexist in the same place, despite competition? These questions are relevant to understanding all of life on Earth, and anoles provide a perfect ‘model system’ for studying them using creative experiments in both the field and the laboratory. But they’re also cute and charismatic—and sometimes hilarious—and its hard not to love that. 

What is your favorite anole species? 

Anolis smaragdinus, the Bahamian green anole. Not only is it a stately lizard, it’s also the underdog in our experiment, so I’m always pulling for it to thrive. 

Where can people learn more about you and follow you online? 

Website: https://pringle.princeton.edu — Twitter: @rob_pringle – Instagram: @pringletons 

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