I am interested in whether, how, and why ecology shapes evolution (and evolution shapes ecology) through time, with an emphasis on microevolutionary pattern and process, adaptation, and field experiments. I completed my Ph.D. on Anolis lizards in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. I am currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Texas, Austin studying threespine stickleback. They're not anoles, but they're cool too.
Turns out that there are lizards out there besides anoles evolving on islands. Check out this award winning film from Nathan Dappen. The film took first place in the first annual NESCent Evolution Film contest. 11 films were screened and voted on by attendees at the Evolution 2011 meeting in Norman, OK.
Editor’s Note: all the entries in the film festival can be seen here. The runner-up, “Why Don’t You Teach Evolution,” is also great.
Any field biologist you talk to likely has pickled specimens in formalin or ethanol at some point during her career. Similarly, ask a molecular ecologist, and it’s probable that he’s preserved some tissue samples in ethanol. It’s also likely that those biologists then transported their specimens or tissues as carry-on or checked baggage on their flights home.
Ethanol and formalin, however, are hazardous materials and bringing them on a plane breaks several laws and can be punished very severely.
Paper figure; Anolis principalis, by R.W. Shufeldt
With all the hoopla over the royal wedding between Prince William and Miss Kate Middleton, I thought it necessary to Google “Anolis Prince William” to see whether the future king had had any interactions with this blog’s most noble subjects during his bachelorhood.
The first link was to this paper, published in 1883 in The American Naturalist. It is a brief natural history note detailing the habits of the American Chameleon, known then as Anolis principalis. Today, we know it as Anolis carolinensis.
An early sentence reads: “This singular interest [in lizards] amounts to positive fascination, as we come to know the anolidae, and I assure you our little American chameleon is one of the most engaging of the group…” (pp. 919).
The Anolis field season, in the Northern Hemisphere at least, lasts from about mid-April to late-August. As winter finally loosens its grip on 2011, anole biologists everywhere are planning trips, breaking out field kits, shaking out field clothes, and gathering replacement equipment in preparation for another exciting season of Anolis field biology. Thus, be sure to stay tuned to this blog throughout the summer for breaking Anolis news.
In light of the upcoming field season, I’ve compiled a Top-10 list of field gear essential, in my opinion, to Anolis field research. And they are:
We’ve had a number of posts here at Anole Annals about lizards falling prey to snakes. Neil Losin, an anole biologist blogging over at Day’s Edge Productions, tells us a different story. Check it out!
The cover of Anolis Newsletter III, supposedly resembling Ernest Williams
“It was while walking along a hedge row in the Dominican Republic, listening to a complaint that I and some of my co-workers did not frame hypotheses every day while in the field, that I invented (or recognized) the PRINCIPLE OF UNSYMPATHETIC MAGIC. This states that, if one arrives at any firm and vivid conviction about matters of fact or theory in the field, the NEXT observation will provide a contradiction.
“The principle is easily confirmed by any field worker. Note, however, that NATURE IS NOT DECEIVED. No opinion merely pretended to, i.e. not held with fierce conviction, will be responded to by a conclusive observation. The MALICE OF NATURE prohibits the PRINCIPLE OF UNSYMPATHETIC MAGIC from being a source of satisfaction to the field worker.”
—Ernest E. Williams in “The Third Anolis Newsletter,” 1977.
The Principle of Unsympathetic Magic, once you’ve learned of it, surfaces everywhere.
Anolis carolinensis - the green anole
Who’s your neighbor? Check out this short documentary by biologist Neil Losin about Anolis research in Miami. It’s cool research and contains some great video and still footage of anoles! After the video, explore the rest of Losin and Nathan Dappen’s Day’s Edge Productions website. Day’s Edge Productions is a new production company that uses video and multimedia to communicate science to the public.
Alexis Harrison and I have spent the last two days on Grand Cayman collecting tail tips from Anolis sagrei. During our work, we’ve seen quite a few A. conspersus. Anolis conspersus is nested within the Jamaican A. grahami, splitting away approximately 2.5 to 3 million years ago when it colonized Grand Cayman. Both species vary in body color across their range from brown to drab green to emerald green to blue green with white mottling.
They are very different, however, in the dewlap. Anolis grahami’s dewlap reflects strongly in the long wavelengths, being orange with a yellow margin. The dewlap of A. conspersus, on the other hand, reflects in short wavelengths being blue and UV-bright.
Anolis grahami - Jamaica
Anolis conspersus - Grand Cayman
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.
Rand examined resource partitioning by seven Anolis species in Puerto Rico. Because of their general ecological similarity, Rand hypothesized that the anole species in Puerto Rico could only coexist if they had evolved (either in sympatry or allopatry) to partition available resources.
Morphologically, based on color, size, and body shape, he divided these seven species into 3 distinct groups: (1) Anolis evermanni and A. stratulus, (2) Anolis gundlachi and A. cristatellus, and (3) Anolis krugi, A. pulchellus and A. poncensis. These three groups would later be classified into the trunk-crown, trunk-ground, and grass-bush ecomorphs, respectively, on the basis of their similarity in habitat use, morphology, and behavior.
Rand showed habitat use partitioning among the species along two habitat axes: structural and climatic. He found that individuals of species that overlapped geographically divided the structural habitat, utilizing different perch heights and diameters. For example, A. evermanni, A. gundlachi, and A. krugi (all different ecomorphs) can be found in the same forest but the species use very different perches. In contrast, within an ecomorphological class (where individuals use similar perches), partitioning takes place along the climatic axis. For example, A. gundlachi and A. cristatellus, both trunk-ground ecomorphs, do not overlap in space. A. gunlachi occupies the shady forest while A. cristatellus inhabits sunny open fields and roadsides alongside the forest.
Rand’s paper is an Anole Classic for several reasons. First, by describing patterns in ecology, morphology, and behavior, this work helped set the stage for the ecomorph concept that Ernest Williams would coin in 1972. Second, Rand described two axes that explain a great deal of the diversity in habitat use by anoles. Third, it was the first paper to include perch diameter, in addition to perch height, as a descriptor of Anolis habitat use. Perch diameter has figured heavily in many subsequent studies of Anolis evolution as differences in perch diameter appear to drive differences in limb morphology among species. Last, Rand’s Figure 1 likely influenced Williams’s famous axes-of-diversification figure (Williams, E.E. 1983. Ecomorphs, faunas, island size, and diverse end points in island radiations of Anolis. In Lizard Ecology: Studies of a Model Organism. Eds. R.B. Huey, E.R. Pianka, and T.W. Schoener. Harvard University Press).
Rand's Figure 1
Williams. Figure 15.2
Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén
