The cover highlights the paper “Restriction Site-Associated DNA Sequencing (RAD-seq) Reveals an Extraordinary Number of Transitions among Gecko Sex-Determining Systems” by Tony Gamble and colleagues.

Michele Johnson’s Lab at Trinity University seems to have brains on the brain. Jake Stercula recently reported on his studies on how the different preferred temperatures of Puerto Rican anoles species affects their brains. That is, how do brains of different species handle being at different temperatures? Read all about his research on “how temperature affects lizard brain cells.”

Meanwhile, Johnson lab member Maria Jaramillo is studying how lizard brains process different images. She’s showing anoles videos of another lizard displaying or of a leaf and investigating how brain activity differs.

A little over two weeks ago, I had a paper focusing on Anolis gundlachi published in Herpetology Notes. I had known since I was a child that I wanted to be a herpetologist, but when I graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor’s in Environmental Studies, there weren’t many opportunities in my area; I fell into environmental consulting, where I stayed for five years.

Eventually, I came to realize that my life’s journey would never change if I didn’t force it to.  In addition to my love of herpetology, I had always wanted to live in the tropics, so when my lease in Atlanta was up in 2008, I sold most of my belongings and went to live and volunteer at Las Casas de la Selva, an approximately 1,000 acre sustainable forestry project in Patillas, Puerto Rico.

Started on the remnants of an old, abandoned coffee plantation, in the early 1980’s the founders of the project planted the introduced timber tree “Blue mahoe” (Talipariti elatum) on approximately 300 acres, allowing the rest of the property to undergo secondary succession.  Now, the T. elatum is being extracted, and younger native trees that have grown beneath the plantation canopy are left behind. The project is staffed entirely by volunteers, and scientific research is carried out with help from the Earthwatch Institute.  For those not aware, Earthwatch is a non-profit organization that provides a unique form of ecotourism mixed with research. Potential travelers fill out an application, and if approved, join a group for an expedition to one of the dozens of projects Earthwatch partners with, for the sole purpose of assisting with scientific research.  I was given permission to design a study and use Earthwatch volunteers to gather data.

My research idea was simple enough, to set up plots in areas with and without Talipariti elatum and see if the presence of the tree made a difference in anole abundance.  With four to six Earthwatch groups per year, I was well on my way to collecting large amounts of data. Meanwhile, as this was my first field survey ever, I was teaching myself “on the fly” through trial and error, as well as spending nights in my casita reading books on research design, ecology, and Puerto Rican herpetofauna.

One of the most disheartening moments during my research was when I had gained enough experience to realize…that I needed to start over.  After reading numerous articles and books dealing with anoles and general ecology, after accumulating almost two years in the field, I decided that I couldn’t in good faith rely on the data I had gathered at the start of my project. I was too inexperienced when I had first started the study, and I felt that I simply couldn’t be certain of the identifications I had made during previous counts; such are the hazards of self-teaching. I was also convinced that in my attempts to survey as large an area as possible, I had included far too many plots in my study, preventing me from gathering useful data; even if the anole identifications were accurate in each plot, I had so many that I had ended up with few anole counts that allowed me to compare the seasonal abundance of one plot to another.  I reduced the size of my study area to one “control” area (without mahoe) and one “plantation” area (with mahoe), with each area containing six plots.  It was a hard lesson to learn, and even harder to admit my mistakes to myself in the first place.

I also learned a lesson in regard to “citizen science,” of which I am still a huge advocate. I now know that in order to get reliable data, it is up to the researcher to set aside an adequate amount of time for training, as well as to implement a research design that is appropriate for the level of experience your volunteers have.

I restarted my research; and although at first I was decidedly taciturn at going back to the starting line, as I conducted more and more counts, I realized I was getting good, usable data. After I felt I had enough counts, I brought my survey to a close, wrote the paper manuscript, reached out to more experienced colleagues to review it, and eventually submitted it to Herpetology Notes, and received feedback and requests for revisions.  Now, that paper has been published, and to me, it means so much more than just the results showing that the null hypothesis couldn’t be rejected–my paper is proof-positive that I can do this. I can be a herpetologist. I can learn the proper methods and protocols of research design. As someone who is largely self-taught and is getting a late start, completing this study make me certain that my best is yet to come, and I can make useful contributions to the discipline.

The paper‘s abstract:

The island of Puerto Rico has one of the highest rates of regrowth of secondary forests largely due to abandonment of previously agricultural land. The study was aimed at determining the impact of the presence of Talipariti elatum, a timber species planted for forest enrichment, on the abundance of anoles at Las Casas de la Selva, a sustainable forestry project located in Patillas, Puerto Rico. The trees planted around 25 years ago are fast-growing and now dominate canopies where they were planted. Two areas, a control area of second-growth forest without T. elatum and an area within the T. elatum plantation, were surveyed over an 18 month period.  The null hypothesis that anole abundance within the study areas is independent of the presence of T. elatum could not be rejected. The findings of this study may have implications when designing forest management practices where maintaining biodiversity is a goal.

We once discussed what the appropriate term would be for a group of anoles, but what about a family of anoles? Is there such a thing? If not, there is now.

Just in case stick figures aren’t an appropriate representation for your family group, look no further than the green anole window clings made personally by herp. lover Andrew. These aren’t yet available on the web, but Andrew may knock a few out for you if you write him directly. I did and now I have one of the most stylish minivans in Florida!

Photo by Kristin Winchell

Cannibalism and a three-and-a-half legged lizard–field trips don’t start any better than that! Read all about it on Kristin Winchell’s website, Adaptability.

Photo by Ambika Kamath

Behavioral research is often reduced to a large set of data points, necessary of course for statistical analysis. But sometimes what gets lost is actual knowledge of what animals do in their natural habitats. There’s no substitute for just watching an animal over the course of a day or  a week. Often what you’ll see is that animals are not little automatons, repetitively undertaking particular actions in accord (or not) with our theories. Rather, they have lives where they do all kinds of idiosyncratic behaviors, the sort of quirky detail that often get lost in high-falutin’ analyses of behavior. Ambika Kamath demonstrated just this in her recent post, “A Week in the Life of U131.” Here’s the first paragraph. You’ll have to go to her website to read the rest:

When you’re collecting data on the behaviour of individual animals over time, as I am this summer, your observations sometimes feel less like a collection of numbers and more like a collection of personal narratives. Of course, the data are both numbers and narratives, and when it comes time to analyze this collection of datapoints and understand the patterns that emerge from it, the numbers will be all that matter. But in the meanwhile, before I can look the bigger picture, I enjoy considering the individual narratives. And this week, I encountered a lizard whose story illustrates why it’s worth considering these narratives at all.

The goal of Anole Annals is to be the clearinghouse for all things Anolis, the place that the anole community turns to for the exchange of information or ideas. To do so, we welcome–no, heartily encourage–contributions from anyone and everyone.

Who can post? Anyone who has something to say about the biology, natural history, or amazing-ness of anoles (well, within reason–we leave anole husbandry and sales issues to other websites). And fear not–you’ll have an audience. Anole Annals is now routinely visited by 600-1000 readers a day. That sounds like a broader impact to me!

Anole Annals is a good place to let the anole community know what you’re working on, like Ambika Kamath’s recent overview of her fascinating work on anole social behavior. And, it’s a great way to spread word of your recently published work–why not provide a short precis or tell the backstory of how the paper came to be, like Liam Revell recently did? It’s a great way of giving people the short story of what you’ve done and get them interested in reading the whole paper.

If you are fortunate to live in an anole-inhabited region, tell us about your local species, like David Alfonso’s recent post on the anoles of Colombia. And if you’ve observed something unusual, here’s a good place to report it, like Graham Reynolds note on twig anoles using mangroves.

And it’s just a great place to ask a question, post a photo, or report an observation. Plus, announcements of relevant conferences or personal milestones, such as newly-minted Ph.D.s, are always appropriate.

Posting is easy, and really doesn’t take much time. More than 100 scientists and anole enthusiasts have written posts–you should too! And if you’ve done so before, you’re overdue for another one. Don’t overthink it–just post today!

It’s been an eventful year in the Losos Lab–three members of the lab have successfully defended their Ph.D.s in 2014-2015! To celebrate their defences, lab member Talia Moore designed and made three wonderful cakes, each tailored to the research of the newly-minted Ph.D.

For Dr. Martha Muñoz, who studied the shift of high-altitude anoles’ perches from trees to rocks, we had this beauty:

For Dr. Alexis Harrison, who studied the Anolis dewlap, primarily in A. sagrei:

And for Dr. Shane Campbell-Staton, who studies geographic variation in cold tolerance in the North American Anolis carolinensis, a map with sampling locations rendered in sprinkles, and lizard popsicles!

Congratulations!!!