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Bob Powell, long time Professor of Biology and Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri is retiring at the end of the Spring semester. Many of you know Bob personally, and others know him through his work on the natural history of West Indian reptiles and amphibians. Bob has had a major positive influence on numerous undergraduate students through his very successful REU program (11 different programs, 101 undergraduate students from 68 different colleges and universities).

Avila is hosting a celebration of Bob’s career at 2 PM on Saturday, 19 May in the Whitfield Conference Center on campus. Avila is located at 11901 Wornall Rd. in Kansas City, Missouri.

Detailed information about the celebration can be found at the following website: https://www.avila.edu/dr-powell-retirement

The webpage includes a link to RSVP, for donations to Avila in Bob’s honor, and to leave him a personal message.

Please join me in congratulating Bob on a fantastic career.

Finally, I will be attending the celebration, so if you have any messages or stories about Bob, please send me a personal message (megifford *at* uca *dot* edu) and I’ll include it in my remarks.

Herps make amazing wildlife ambassadors. Many small children read about them or see them in books, but rarely have first-hand contact with them. During a recent outreach event in the northern suburbs of Chicago, I met first and second graders that had never seen a live snake or lizard! When one came out of a bag, they lit up like they had just caught Santa emerging from the chimney on Christmas morning.

Based on that introduction, it is easy to conclude that I get a lot of enjoyment out of introducing the world of herps to small kids. I enjoy engaging with kids in ways that not only introduce them to the animals, but also in ways that could motivate them to pursue science throughout their education. Several years ago, I described an exercise aimed at getting kids to think about the ways that dewlaps are used during animal communication. This past weekend I tested a new exercise as an outreach activity for GEMS, Girls Empowered in Math and Science, which was hosted at Niles West High School in Skokie, IL. GEMS is organized to encourage fifth through seventh grade girls to pursue careers in STEM. This year’s event had about 135 girls registered across that age range! This exercise is meant to teach kids about the biology of the adhesive toe pad and the bioinspired engineering that led to the development of Geckskin.

The first objective of this exercise is to get the students thinking about how a lizard can climb rugose tree bark using their claws. Easy right? But what about clinging to a waxy leaf, hanging upside down from a ceiling, or traveling 80mph down a highway where their claws can’t be used? Compared to other lizards, this is their “super power.” After explaining the microanatomy of the toe pads to the class–the pad, setae, and spatula–I gave them a challenge. With a collection of every type of tape available at Home Depot (Duct, Scotch, painters, masking, packing, etc.), I challenged the students to choose one that could outperform a lizard’s toe pad. The students were broken into small groups, each taking a piece of wood and a small piece of Plexiglas (tree bark could also work but might not be reusable across many groups). Each group selects a type of tape that is then run through a battery of challenges during which time I provide the biological commentary:

• A lizard runs around all forest all day. Its toe pads must be reused over and over again without fail. How many times can your tape be reused before it is no longer sticky?
• A lizard must run on different surfaces–leaves, tree bark, rocks. How does the tape perform on different surfaces?
• A lizard doesn’t leave tracks where it walks. Does your tape leave a residue?
• As the lizard walks, does its foot stick to the surface it is walking on as it tries to take a step? How easy is the toe removed compared to your tape?
• Some days it will rain. Do lizards fall out of the trees when it rains? No. Now, what happens when your tape gets wet? (a moist sponge is provided)
• Lizard toes also get dirty. What happens if the tape gets dirty? Feel free to try to brush of as much dirt as possible after putting the tape in. (a dish of coconut bark  was provided)

As the students are working through these challenges, I pull out a Lepidodactylus gecko and a knight anole from behind the table at the front of the room (they are usually clinging to the side of their cage which helps with the wow factor) and clicked through slides of lizards seeming to overcome each of these obstacles. A few smiles overcame the students as they realized that they had been bested by a tiny reptile.

After demonstrating that nature has come up with an amazing solution for adhesion, I pose a question to the kids, “What if we apply what we learned from these lizards to develop new products that we could use in everyday life?” Here I introduce them to the ingenuity of Geckskin (developed in part by ex -officio anole biologist Duncan Irschick). I must briefly digress to sincerely thank Phelsuma/Geckskin CEO Rana Gupta for providing Geckskin samples that I could demonstrate for these kids. As he says in the video, they “feel magical.” They are not tacky like tape, but stick to a variety of surfaces like a dream. There are some useful videos of Rana demonstrating the Geckskin products on the company’s website. The climax of my demonstration was pressing a 2X2 Geckskin Griphanger against a board as several girls held either side. Then, suspended by a piece of climbing cordellette, they hung a 5lb weight on this pad with my toes directly below. I bet the girls to use any of their tapes to do the same thing, but didn’t have any takers. (This could easily be another challenge offered to the students during a longer presentation.)

At the end of this demonstration the girls had the chance to meet Bob the red foot tortoise and Spot the ball python. (Anoles and geckos don’t make the best hands-on animals for presentations.) The presentation can readily go on without the use of live animals, but it seems to help bring the kids out of their shells and leads to a more memorable experience for them. I hope that others can use this write-up for motivation for some exercises they can employ during their next outreach activity. I am off to see some second graders in two weeks.
* I always appreciate feedback on these exercises as well. Fire away! 

 

It’s been 2 weeks now since we held the long-anticipated Anolis Symposium at the Fairchild Gardens in Miami, Florida. Although we called it the 7th symposium, it was in fact only the 4th of these meetings which have previously been held in 1989, 1999, and 2009. In case you are wondering, the 7 corresponds to the number of Anolis newsletters that have been published over the years, the last 3 following each Anolis Symposium (a tradition we would like to keep up).

It was an excellent weekend full of exceptional talks, great Cuban food, catching up with old friends and making new ones, and of course, lots of lizards! For those of you who were not in attendance, here’s a brief recap:

We had a great group of 68 attendees. Over half of the attendees presented talks or posters. As you can see from the picture, there were a lot of the younger generation (graduate students and post-docs) in attendance. The rest of you missed out on a great time!

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The 34 talks spanned a broad range of topics, including genomics (CRISPR in Anoles!), phylogenetic methods, behavior, diet, morphology, invasion biology, adaptation and natural selection, and (my favorite) anoles in urban areas. There was a little bit of something for everyone and a lot of great work being done. It’s a very exciting time to be an anole biologist!

Organizers James Stroud and Anthony Geneva did a wonderful job with all the bells and whistles, including lizard beers brewed especially for the symposium!

And of course, the lizards did not disappoint!

Let’s not wait another 10 years to make the next one happen! We would like to hold the next one in 2023, who wants to help us plan it? Send me an email (kmwinchell@gmail.com) or comment here if you have suggestions for the next meeting or would like to be kept in the loop about planning. Where should we have it? What time of year? And if you were at the meeting, let us know in the comments what your favorite part of the meeting was.

The March 2018 issue of Herpetological Review is chockful of fascinating Natural History Notes about anoles. Highlights: A male carolinensis mating with a female sagrei (we’ve seen that before!), a cristatellus eating a smaller member of the same species, a sagrei eating an anole, and communal nesting in green anoles. You can read all these stories and more, now that Natural History Notes are open access and downloadable! Click on volume 49(1), Natural History Notes.

I arrived a day early for the 2018 Anolis Symposium. When it became clear I was not needed to help get things ready, I did what any red-blooded anolologist would do: I headed off for All-America Park, the hottest of hotspots for Miami anoles.

And what a day it was. Two minutes after leaving my hotel, I saw what I’m pretty sure was an Ameiva, though I didn’t get a good look. Then red-headed agamas underneath the monorail on the Dixie Highway.

Plenty o’ iguanas. How many can you find?

And curly-tailed lizards!

Along the way, I also saw three introduced anoles: (A. sagrei, A. cristatellus and A. distichus).

Finally, I got to All-America Park and immediately met five-term South Miami mayor Phil Stoddard, who doubles as a crackerjack neuroethologist at Florida International University, and is a great naturalist to boot. We walked around the park looking for Anolis garmani, the Jamaican giant anole, but without success. There were plenty of other anoles at the Park, all the same ones I’d already seen, but also a knight anole and 13 green anoles–they definitely are doing just fine despite all the invasives. The lizard search was conducted to a soundtrack of screeching peacocks and the occasional flock of parrots flying back. I love Miami! Sadly, no Jamaican giant anoles, A. garmani. That’ll have to wait for a return visit.

It’s not to late to hop on a plane and get to beautiful Fairchilds Botanical Garden! Abstracts are posted. Here’s the schedule:

9:00 – 9:30 James Stroud Florida International University
Introduction and Welcome

9:30 – 9:45 Michele A. Johnson Trinity University
Physiological mechanisms underlying behavioral convergence in Caribbean anoles

9:45 – 10:00 Tony Gamble Marquette University
Anolis sex chromosomes, past, present, and future

10:00 – 10:15 Rosario Castañeda Universidad Icesi
When did anoles diverge? An analysis of multiple dating strategies

10:15 – 10:30 Colin Donihue Harvard University
Hurricane-induced adaptive shifts in the morphology of an island lizard

10:30 – 10:45 Leo J. Fleishman Union College
Why are there so many yellow dewlaps?

10:45 – 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 – 11:45 Graham Reynolds University of North Carolina Asheville
Genetic and Morphometric Diversification in the Brown Anole Suggest Early Pathways of Anole Colonization and Evolution in the Caribbean

11:45 – 12:00 Nathalie Feiner Lund University
Transposable elements, Hox gene clusters and genome evolution– How special are Anolis lizards?

12:00 – 12:15 Thomas J. Sanger Loyola University Chicago
The Mechanisms of Thermal Stress Induced Craniofacial Malformation in Lizards Developmental biology

12:15 – 12:30 Sozos N. Michaelides University of Rhode Island
Invasion history of four Anolis lizard species introduced to Bermuda Invasion biology

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 14:15 Kristin M. Winchell University of Massachusetts Boston
Performance Consequences of Urban Morphological Shifts

14:15 – 14:30 Kenro Kusumi Arizona State University
Comparative Genomics Reveals Accelerated Evolution in Conserved Pathways during Anolis Diversification

14:30 – 14:45 Sean Giery University of Connecticut
Some thoughts on the trophic ecology of Anolis lizards

14:45 – 15:00 D. Luke Mahler University of Toronto
Land use and the restructuring of anole communities across an elevational gradient

15:00 – 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 – 16:00 Ivan Prates Smithsonian Museum of Natural History
Genomic signatures of adaptation associated with a history of range expansions in South American anoles

16:00 – 16:15 Oriol Lapiedra Harvard University / CREAF
Predator-induced natural selection in behavior Behaviour

16:15 – 16:30 Caitlin C. Mothes University of Miami
Using South Florida’s exotic lizard community to evaluate the use of ecological niche models in predicting biotic invasions

16:30 – 17:00 Neil Losin Day’s Edge Productions
The Lizard’s Tale and Anole Annals v2.0: An enhanced platform for Anolis outreach

17:00
Social & Poster Session

Saturday, 17 March 2018
9:30 – 9:45 Douglas B. Menke University of Georgia
Genome editing methods for the production of genetically modified anoles

9:45 – 10:00 Sarin Tiatragul Auburn University
A shady way to beat the Miami heat

10:00 – 10:15 Joanna O. Palade Arizona State University
Anolis carolinensis satellite cells have expanded musculoskeletal potential

10:15 – 10:30 Gregory C. Mayer University of Wisconsin-
Parkside Using archival DNA to elucidate anole phylogeny Systematics and/or taxonomy

10:30 – 10:45 Liam J. Revell Universidad del Rosario and UMass Boston
Can we detect differences in the rate of discrete character evolution between clades of anoles?

10:45 – 11:30 Coffee Break

11:30 – 11:45 Amber N. Wright University of Hawaii
Predicting the outcome of species interactions in a novel species assemblage: Anolis vs. Phelsuma in Hawaii

11:45 – 12:00 Andrew C. Battles University of Rhode Island
The other Miami Heat: Urban areas alter thermal biology and influence persistence and spread of two invasive Anolis species.

12:00 – 12:15 Nathan W. Turnbough I
Covariation in arthropod community composition and dominant anole identity on dredge spoils islands in Florida

12:15 – 12:30 Cindy Xu Arizona State University
Tail Regeneration in Anole Lizards: Insights from Comparative Genomic Analysis and Reformation of the Peripheral Motor Nervous System

12:30 – 14:00 Lunch

14:00 – 14:15 Michael L. Logan Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Using experimental islands to explore evolutionary dynamics under climate change Thermal biology, ecology, or evolution

14:15 – 14:30 Christine Rose-Smyth Verdant Isle Orchids
Role of a sweet-toothed anole in orchid pollination Species interactions

14:30 – 14:45 Christopher J. Thawley University of Rhode Island
Let There Be Light: Widespread Use of Human-Produced Light at Night by Anoles and Its Consequences

14:45 – 15:00 Sean Doody USF St. Petersburg Environmentally Cued Hatching in Anoles Behaviour

15:00 – 15:45 Coffee Break

15:45 – 16:00 Winter A. Beckles University of Miami Signal divergence and habitat partitioning among non-native bark anoles in South Florida

16:00 – 16:15 Stephanie L. Clements University of Miami
Non-native species dominate herpetofaunal community composition in both native and non-native habitat patches in Miami-Dade County

16:15 – 16:30 Zachary A. Chejanovski University of Rhode Island
Predators influence prey body size variation in an urban landscape

16:30 – 16:45 Joshua M. Hall Auburn University
Does season-dependent reproductive value of offspring drive the evolution of life-history traits in Anolis lizards?

16:45 – 17:00 Jonathan Losos Washington University in St. Louis
Concluding Remarks

Ambika Kamath has written a synthesis of her two recent papers in territoriality in anoles. It appeared on March 12, 2018 on her blog, Behavioral Ecology, Natural History, Science and Society and is reprinted below:

In my major Ph.D. project, I questioned the idea that territoriality is a good or useful description of Anolis lizards’ mating systems. When I began working on this question, I planned to primarily use an empirical approach, measuring the movement patterns and mating patterns of a population of Anolis sagrei in a way that didn’t depend on territoriality. But anticipating future criticism, I realised that because I’d be working in one population of one species, my empirical work could readily and reasonably be dismissed as an aberration without a broader foundation on which to place it.

This realization led to the historical review in which my Ph.D. advisor Jonathan Losos and I examined the history of research on Anolis territoriality. I’ve written about this historical research quite a bit before, but haven’t said much about the empirical work, leaving the two complementary halves of this project unintegrated. That’s partly been because the empirical work wasn’t published until recently. But it’s also because in contextualizing the problem tackled by the empirical paper, I have to basically recount the whole of the historical review. There really hasn’t been room to talk about both in a single venue, and there still isn’t, but I’m going to tell you a bit more about the empirical paper to balance things out. You’ve heard a little about it before–I wrote field notes about one of the males in this study (interesting addendum: U131 fathered none of the offspring of the females he encountered!) and about a tiny survey of green anoles that we conducted concurrently.

The empirical paper is now published, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B! Here’s an awesome press release about the study from UCSB that will give you the gist of it, but in short what we did was:

• Catch and mark almost every lizard we saw, and then measure the spatial locations of as many lizards as we could by repeatedly surveying as big an area as we could.
• Make a map of all the trees within our sampling area.
• Measure the body size and estimate the population-level growth rate of males
• Collect a subset of the females, bring them into the lab, and collect the DNA of their offspring.
• Devise a mathematical approach to estimating encounters between males and females from data on their spatial locations. Combined this with the growth-rate estimate to calculate the size of males at their encounters with females.
• Use DNA sequencing to figure out the likely fathers of the females’ offspring; we leaned on the estimates of male-female encounters to do so.
• Use a clever and (I think!) pretty original approach to quantifying sexual selection on body size and movement patterns by comparing the traits of males that encountered females to the traits of the subset of those males that actually fathered offspring.

In sum what we found was that male and female movement patterns spanned larger areas and were more dynamic than many of us had previously imagined, that females encounter multiple potential mates, that at least 60% and possibly up to 80% of females  mate with multiple males, and that sexual selection acts on male body size as well as males’ spatial extent and the timing of male-female encounters. I’ll let you read the press release and the paper itself to learn more about what we found (here it is on BioRxiv, essentially the same paper but freely accessible)!

Viewed together, I hope the historical and empirical papers make a convincing case that we’ve been looking at Anolis mating systems in a limited way for a long time, and that other, newer ways of quantifying mating systems in ways that don’t depend on territoriality can yield both interesting and sensible results. I see this work as opening up an arena of questions, both in Anolis and in other taxa where mating systems have been described in a static way for a long period of time.

I’m very proud of this paper. I remember a phase of grad school when I found it impossible to convince people that this work would turn out interesting, or maybe it was just that my own self-doubt prevented me from seeing others’ interest and support for this research. It remains true that this is one study of one population of one species, and it may well be that I turn out to be all wrong. Perhaps new explorations of Anolis mating systems will eventually lead us back to territoriality. But even if that’s the case, I feel confident that, thanks to this work, we’ll be able to approach that or any description of Anolis mating systems with clearer, more skeptical, and more discerning eyes.

This won’t be the last you’ll be hearing from me on this subject of lizard mating systems; for one, there are responses to our historical review that are in the process of being published, and we’ll have a chance to respond to them. I’m very excited to engage in an actual scientific dispute, and will do my best to do so respectfully and productively, especially since I have on-the-record views about what makes such disputes annoying. But in terms of research, I seem to be heading in other directions, which I think will be related to this work but maybe not directly. So I wanted to make sure that I put down here, all in one place, what I see this project as and what I hope it will achieve. Let me know what you think!