Mark Outerbridge recently posted this photo in a comment, writing: “This photo of an anole hatchling was taken (via cell phone, hence the poor quality) by a member of the public in the departure lounge at the Bermuda international airport. Could it be a brown anole?”
We’ve already reported on brownies in Bermuda, but who would have thought they were going in on commercial flights? Or maybe they’re heading home? Is this a brown anole? Could it be Anolis grahami or some other species?
I observed this (full size image) interaction in my backyard one afternoon while I was hunting for good pictures. All anoles tend to flee as I walk around my backyard, but some only retreat partially or temporarily. These two stayed relatively out in the open until I moved a little closer, causing one to flee in to the vicinity of the other one causing the event seen in the picture.
To acknowledge, if not celebrate, the news that Anolis sagrei has become established on the Honduran Bay Island of Utila–which harbors three native species–we present this photograph of the first place that the species was discovered, a vacant lot in the middle of town. As you can see if inspect the photo, the introduction has been quite successful. But just how successful? How many brown anoles can you spot?
A brown anole is caught up in the web of an Nephila orb-weaving spider
Anoles eating spiders and spiders turning the table on anoles are well reported in both the literature and here on Anole Annals (1, 2). Recently, biologists Sarah French and Matthew Wolak of UC Riverside encountered this unfortunate Anolis sagrei that had been caught up in the web of an Nephila orb-weaving spider. Here’s what they had to say about the enounter: “We were at the Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton. Matt & I were walking down the boardwalk, totally creeped out by the abundance of spiders, when we encountered the anole caught in a web. He was still alive, but pretty well caught. The spider didn’t seem entirely sure what to do with it, but she seemed to occasionally bite it, which caused the anole to jerk & thrash about for a few seconds. It was hard not to feel sympathy for the anole, but native species trump exotic, and so we refrained from interfering! (But we also didn’t stick around for too long to watch).”
A view of our hotel from the parking lot, right in front of the spot where the brown anole was lounging.
On our recent trip to Mexico, we had been warned that brown anoles were spreading beyond the coast, and sure enough, we found ’em. The photo above is a female A. sagrei we spotted in the parking lot of our point five-star hotel located in downtown Chinantla, Veracruz, Mexico. The photo ain’t pretty, but the ID is unmistakeable: them’s Cuban emigres, doing just fine in the Mexican heartland.
We actually found brown anoles at two spots in Chinantla. The other was a small, bright green pained shack near the intersection of the highway and the main road through town. A bunch of female and juveniles brown anoles were running up and down the walls of the shack, easily seen from the side of the road. You can’t miss it, not only due to its bright color, but also because of the transit police standing in front, randomly waving over cars–especially those driven by oddly-attired biologists–and then finding problems with their registration or what-not. In fact, you’ll have plenty of time to watch the anoles as the officers explain at great length why they will have to impound the car, even though it is a rental and you are five hours from Veracruz, where your flight leaves the next morning, because the car’s tax certificate for 2013 is not plastered to the back window. You’ll probably be distracted by your colleague on her cell-phone berating the rental car office, but stay focused, even when–finally–the police officers realize (as the rental car people predicted) that it is possible to pay the registration tax, on the spot, in cash, and without being given a receipt. Any way, that’s where to look for brown anoles in Chinantla.
Hertz Rent-a-Car won’t make that mistake again!
Could a lizard stowaway on a succulent?
We hear a lot about invasive anoles–A. sagrei and others–showing up all over the place: Singapore, Taiwan, you name it. But how do they get there? I was recently reminded of an article by Gad Perry and colleagues in the journal Iguana (now Reptiles and Amphibians: Conservation and Natural History–a quarterly journal available online and worth a look). Perry et al. examined a barge delivering a large number of potted plants to the small island of Guana in the British Virgin Islands. The plants came initially from Florida, but had been sitting in a nursery on a nearby island for at least ten days. What would they contain?
To find out, the investigators laboriously inspected the plants, all 220+ of them, one by one. And sure enough, there were stowaways: six juvenile Puerto Rican crested anoles (A. cristatellus); a dwarf gecko, Sphaerodactylus macrolepis; also, an immature spider, three snails and nests of the red fire ant. In addition, the barge carrying the cargo contained two other lizards, Ameiva exsul.
And remember, this is one just one shipment. Now, in this case, all of the lizards were natives, as were most of the invertebrates. But imagine all of the plants being shipped out from Florida, containing brown anoles, Cuban treefrogs, and who knows what else? My prediction: it’s just a matter of time before brown anoles are everywhere in the urban tropical world.
LIke all the anoles in our study, a considerable fraction of A. equestris’ diet was derived from the flow of allochthonous resources into its habitat.
A. sagrei, probably the most common vertebrate in Florida perch low on trees making occasional forays to the ground to feed.
The ecological importance of small, terrestrial insectivores such as litter frogs and small geckos is a topic that I’ve been curious about for years. While my dissertation research does not include anything about it, I am still quite curious about how these small, diverse and abundant vertebrates fit into ecosystems. Anoles possess all of the attributes that seem to predispose them to strong interactions and soon after arriving in Miami to begin my Ph.D., I decided to launch a small, side-project using tried-and-true food web tools, stable isotopes and gut content analysis to try to illustrate if and how these small, rather inconspicuous predators might affect ecosystem structure and function. The results of this study were just published online in Functional Ecology.
Basically, we found that anoles couple adjacent food webs by consuming insects that move across habitat boundaries. While food web linkages are a potentially important ecological dynamic and our study yielded some unique findings, there are other bits of information for those more generally interested in anole biology. Therefore, I’ve decided to break this post into two parts. Part 1 deals with our primary findings and contextualizes them within current understanding of food web ecology linkages. It’s sort of a geeky treatment of the subject. Part 2 will illustrate some of the other data that we’ve collected that were not dealt with explicitly in the paper that will be of interest to, I suspect, AA readers.
Bidirectional trophic linkages couple canopy and understory food webs
Sean T. Giery,Nathan P. Lemoine, Caroline M. Hammerschlag-Peyer, Robin N. Abbey-Lee, and Craig A. Layman
1. Cross-system resource flux is a fundamental component of ecological systems. Allochthonous material flows generate trophic linkages between adjacent food webs, thereby affecting community structure and stability in recipient systems.
2. We investigated cross-habitat trophic linkages between canopy and understory food webs in a terrestrial, wooded, ecosystem in South Florida, USA. The focal community consisted of three species of Anolis lizards and their prey. We described interspecific differences among Anolis species in the strength and routing of these cross-habitat flows using stable isotope analysis, stomach content analysis, and habitat use data.
3. All three Anolis species in this study consumed different prey, and occupied vertically distinct arboreal habitats. Despite these differences, carbon isotope and stomach content analysis revealed strong integration with understory and canopy food webs for all Anolis species. Modes of resource flux contributing to the observed cross-habitat trophic linkages included prey movement and the gravity-driven transport of detritus.
4. Our study shows that terrestrial systems are linked by considerable bidirectional cross-system resource flux. Our results also suggest that considering species-specific interactions between predator and prey are necessary to fully understand the diversity of material and energy flows between spatially separated habitats.
The study system was dominated by St. Augustine grass and isolated Ficus trees.
Some basics – The community was composed of four anole species, Anolis sagrei, A. distichus, A. carolinensis*, and A. equestris. The study site was recently featured in AA. Generally, the purpose of the study was to describe variation among species in resource use using stomach contents, habitat use, and stable isotope analysis. But based on some initial observations and a bit of stable isotope data, we had considered that there might be a role for anoles in ecosystems via linking spatially distinct food webs. That is, anole diets might be sourced, in part, by primary production originating outside their respective microhabitats. Basically, we knew that anoles occupy distinct arboreal habitats, but when we examined the stomach contents of each, we found that some prey were from habitats spatially distinct from the ones used by each anole species (e.g., How do terrestrial grasshoppers get inside a canopy giant anole such as A. equestris?),which spawned a more in-depth investigation. Additionally, some initial stable isotope data strongly supported the same interpretation – that is, anole diets might be at least partially derived from allochthonous resources.
One of the greatest threats to ecosystems is the continued introduction and spread of invasive species, which are commonly introduced to new areas by humans. Invasive species not only threaten nature preserves, but can harm commerce (such as zebra mussels damaging ships, or lionfish devastating fishing grounds) and pose a threat to public health by spreading disease (such as introduced rodents and mosquitoes). However, despite the problems caused by invasive species, we still know surprisingly little about what makes certain species successful in new ranges.
For my dissertation research in the Martin lab at the University of South Florida, I hope to identify the mechanisms that enable these species to survive and spread following an introduction. By identifying some of these mechanisms, we will be able to focus control efforts in a more effective manner by ascertaining which species have this potential. Specifically, I study Anolis sagrei, the brown anole, which is native to Cuba and the Bahamas, but is widespread across Florida where it has displaced the native green anole. My research aims to address if A. sagrei is able to be so successful in its introduced range in Florida because it changes the way it uses dietary resources as it invades new territory. The results of my study will not only fill a gap in the knowledge that we have on a common invasive species in Florida, but will also provide a stepping stone for future research on invasive species from other taxonomic groups.
The scientific community is no exception to having cope with budget cuts. Many labs that have traditionally depended on funding from federal agencies are finding money for research (especially ecological research) harder to come by. That is where the general public comes in. Crowd funding provides an opportunity for the general public to personally contribute to research projects and allows scientists to reach out and bridge the gap between the public and scientific communities. The support I receive from funders will be used to help me travel to different locations across the introduced range of A. sagrei in Florida and for sample processing at the University of South Florida. I will be sampling from sites close to the point of original introduction (Key Largo and Miami-Dade, FL), as well as sites where brown anoles have been reported for less than 20 years.
Please help to support my research: http://rkthb.co/25521
You can also keep up with my research by following me on Twitter @OffbeatScience and visiting my website.
Editor’s Note: A report from the Sunshine State
I was asked to report on my most recent Anolis garmani exploits here in South Florida, So here goes. Remember, I’m not a scientist, or an author, just a funny old man with whiskers!
Thursday, June 27, 2013
An old friend had asked me to find him a few “Nice Green Anoles.” His intent, I believe, was to have me supply Anolis carolinensis for him to breed.
OOPS!!!
He received 1.2 young adult Anolis garmani!
My friend is handicapped & lives on a fixed income. He is also a very knowledgeable (& well known in certain circles) Herper. I thought he might enjoy these highly intelligent &, at times, PRECOCIOUS creatures!
SO!
I left work early, cuz I can do things like that! I know of several populations of Anolis garmani, from Southern Dade Co. to Northern Palm Beach Co., other than the colony at All-America Park. I decided to visit one in North Dade Co. ½ way between work & my friend’s house.
In the populations that I know of there are several types:
1) Green with a dark (½) tail & a red blotch on the top of the head
2) Green with powder blue ½ tail or more & blue bands. With or without the red blotch on head
An interesting aspect of human activity and urban development is the ability of species to respond to new opportunities that did not previously exist. We have seen previous posts (1, 2) on Anole Annals highlighting nocturnal activity in anoles, which are recognised as a predominantly diurnal group. Here is another short observation that I and Sean Giery (of previous Knight Anole fame) observed a while ago whilst doing some night herping at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens which will be published as a short natural history note in an upcoming edition of Herp Review:
On 18 April 2013 between 22:03-22:15 h, a single adult Cuban knight anole Anolis equestris was observed at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens, Miami FL (25.677°N, 80.276°W, WGS84). This individual was observed consuming Lepidoptera attracted to an artificial light source positioned above a doorway. Nocturnal lizards (Hemidactylus mabouia) were also present around the light source and could represent another potential prey source for nocturnally foraging A. equestris. This is the first documentation of A. equestris using artificial light sources to allow for nocturnal activity.
Cuban knight anole (Anolis equestris) active and foraging at night with the aid of a wall light above a door
This behavioural plasticity provides not only a fascinating, but also just a really cool new branch of anole research. This could be highlighted particularly well with introduced species which may experience interspecific competition levels along axes which in their native range they may not have been exposed to. Stay tuned!
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