Author: Rich Glor Page 9 of 13

Introduced Iguanas, Not Native Anoles, Dominate Dominican Gift Shop T-Shirts

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On September 16, 2011

In Anoles in Commerce

T-shirts photographed in gift shops in the Santo Domingo airport (left and center), and a guy wearing a Punta Cana iguana t-shirt photographed during a layover in Atlanta (right).

We’ve previously discussed how difficult it is to find gifts featuring anoles (aside from some cafepress fare).  Even more depressing is the fact that introduced green iguanas (Iguana iguana) are regular features on gift shop fare in the Dominican Republic, a country with one of the coolest of all anole faunas.  Heck, there aren’t even shirts with the native rock iguanas (Cyclura)!  We really need to recruit an entrepreneur to start making Dominican paraphenalia featuring endemic wildlife.

Amazing Anole Fight Caught on Film

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On September 12, 2011

In Natural History Observations, Notes from the Field

Fights between male anoles in nature can get pretty serious.  A few dramatic anole fight videos have already been posted on-line, including some mentioned previously on anole annals ([1], [2]).  Recently, I posted photos from a fight we saw this summer on a rock along the Rio Bani between two males of A. d. ravitergum.  This was the most dramatic anole fight I’ve ever seen, with the males tumbling head over heels down a boulder while locked in combat.  The fight ended with one male skulking off and the other proudly displaying from atop the boulder.  Now, Shea Lambert has posted his video of the fight on YouTube (Shea aptly added background music from the classic video game Mortal Kombat).  This video was taken with a point and shoot digital camera, so the quality isn’t the greatest, but Shea did a great job capturing all of the acrobatics!  To quote Shea immediately after the fight: “That dark anole is a straight-up ninja.”

What Do You Get When You Combine Three Lizards and a Chicken?

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On September 7, 2011

In Anole Genome Research, New Research

Anolis carolinensis (http://www.birderslounge.com/2008/07/green-anole-amore/), A. marmoratus (from willy.ramaekers flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27048739@N02/), Polychrus marmoratus (from Pierson Hills flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nclarkii/), chickens (from http://ww.animalpicturesarchive.com/)

New primers for sequencing nuclear loci from Anolis!

Availability of genomic loci for sequencing has long been a major stumbling block to evolutionary inference in non-model taxa.  In anoles, for example, several decades of work relied almost exclusively on mitochondrial DNA.  As part of the Anole genome sequencing initiative, my lab group collaborated with the Broad Institute to identify conserved primers that can be used to amplify nuclear loci from across Anolis.  We ultimately tested 200+ primer pairs, most of which were identified by comparing the genome of Anolis carolinensis to genomic data from two related lizards (Anolis marmoratus and Polychrus marmoratus) and the chicken (others came from recent work in the Jackman lab).

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The ‘ii’s Have It: The Correct Scientific Name for Ricord’s Giant Anole

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On September 6, 2011

In Ask the Experts

A dewlap photograph of Anolis ricordii from the western Dominican Republic.

If I had a nickel for each time I’ve been asked whether the correct spelling of the scientific name for Ricord’s Giant Anole is Anolis ricordii with two ‘i’s or Anolis ricordi with one ‘i,’ I’d have at least 15 cents.  Way back in 1837, Bibron described this species as Anolis ricordii, in honor of “M. Ricord.”  Why then, do some people use a single ‘i’ form that disagrees with the original description?  I attempt to answer this question in this post, while also establishing the fact that the double ‘ii’ spelling is correct.

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Media Coverage of the Anole Genome Paper

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On August 31, 2011

In Anole Genome Research

Photo by David E. Scott/Savannah River Ecology Laboratory, Aiken, S.C.

We’ll try to keep this post updated with links to coverage of the anole genome paper (please use the comments to tell us about new articles as they appear!):

Commentaries: Science 2.0, Why Evolution is True, Nature, National Geographic, Dust Tracks, myFDL (are you a septic of evolution?)

Press Release and Summaries: Broad Institute Press Release, Bloomberg, Harvard Gazette, Redorbit, International Business Times (and some amusing chatter about this article), TruthDive, io9, R&D Daily, GenomeWeb Daily

Anole Genome Paper Published Today!

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On August 31, 2011

In Anole Genome Research, New Research

Image copyright Andrew M. Shedlock.

The anole genome paper is out in Nature today (although links on Nature’s own page only take you to a list of authors at the present time, I’m assuming this glitch will be fixed shortly).  Nature also published a brief commentary highlighting some of the most interesting discoveries from this work.  For more coverage of work related to the genome, check out this post and stay tuned to Anole Annals – we’ll have a bunch more genome posts over the next few days.

The Origins of Anolis carolinensis

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On August 30, 2011

In Anole Genome Research

Fig. 1: Figures illustrating Cuban origins of A. carolinensis from our 2005 paper in Molecular Ecology. Green shading indicates the range and phylogenetic position of A. carolinensis, blue shading indicates Cuban populations related to A. carolinensis. The arrows indicate possible dispersals from Cuba, some of which are supported by phylogenies (including the dispersal from Cuba to the continental United States indicated by the bold arrow).

With all this discussion of the green anole’s genome, it seems like a good time to remind everyone of how Anolis carolinesis came to be the model organism that it is today.  The simple answer, of course, is that A. carolinensis is the only species of anole endemic to the continental United States.  As such, its always been the anole species most accessible to the broadest range of researchers.  The deeper answer – and the focus of this post – concerns how A. carolinesis happened to become the continental United States’s only native anole in the first place.

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Not Your Typical Genome: Homogeneous Anole Genome Lacks Isochores Common in Other Amniotes

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On August 23, 2011

In Anole Genome Research, New Research

Figures from Fujita et al. illustrating relative homogeneity of GC content across the anole genome (left) and shifts in GC3 along branches in the vertebrate tree, with black branches indicating descreases of GC3 and gray branches indicating increases of GC3 (right).

Genomes are rarely homogeneous aggregations of Gs, As, Ts, and Cs.  Indeed, variation in  basepair frequency can have important implications for how genomes, and the organisms they generate, evolve.  Regions with relatively homogenous GC content that extend for more than 300 kb known as isochores are prominent features of previously sequenced amniote genomes.  Isochores are associated with a range of important variables, including gene density, intron length, DNA replication timing, and gene expression.  GC-rich isochores also tend to experience high rates of recombination, resulting in elevated effective population sizes and increased efficiency of purifying selection relative to drift.

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Anole Annals Trivia: What are We Looking At?

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On August 16, 2011

In Anole Annals Trivia, Notes from the Field

Invertebrates associated with Hispaniolan anoles. Scale bar in right panel is in millimeters.

The invertebrates in the image above were photographed yesterday in the Dominican Republic.  Today’s trivia is related to these invertebrates and consists of three questions:

1. What are these invertebrates and how do they interact with anoles?

2. How many individuals are in the right panel (note: all of these individuals were associated with a single anole)?

3. How do these invertebrates factor into Dominican folklore?

Hybridization in Action?

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On August 15, 2011

In Notes from the Field

Photo copyright R. Glor 2011.

Perhaps this is Anole Annals’ first NSFW post, but the mating event depicted in the photo above was such an exciting observation and photographic opportunity that I can’t help but share.  Yesterday we discovered a new contact zone between two phenotypically and genetically distinct populations of Anolis distichus along the Rio Bani (this contact zone is along the river’s eastern bank rather than along its well-traversed western bank). Along a narrow zone of contact (~500 m), green bodied, orange dewlapped populations of A. d. ignigularis come into contact with gray-bodied, yellow dewlapped populations of A. d. ravitergum.  While sampling this contact zone, we ran across the copulating pair pictured above. The fact that the male is predominantly gray and the female predominantly green may be an indication that this is a hybridization event between A. d. ravitergum and A. d. ignigularis; genetic analyses on tissue samples collected from the pair will soon provide the answer!

If it is a hybrid pair, its likely to be more successful than others reported recently on anole anoles (e.g., A. carolinensis and A. sagrei); although hybrids between A. d. ignigularis and A. d. ravitergum are rare in nature, our captive mating experiments have yielded hundreds of eggs and offspring from matings between A. d. ravitergum and A. d. ignigularis.

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