The ace photographic herpetologists at Tropical Herping are at it again! After publishing several beautiful and extremely useful guides–The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindoand Reptiles of Galápagos–they’re now taking on the entire herpetofauna of Ecuador. If you have any doubts about their photographic chops, check out this page on Ecuadorian anoles.
And you can help make this book a reality! I’ve already done my part by sponsoring a species, but you have to guess which one.
Now you can play a major role in the publication of the 🐍 Reptiles of Ecuador 🇪🇨 book. Choose one of Ecuador’s 483 species of reptiles and your name will be displayed as its official protector or guardian in the species’ online data sheet. Your donation will help fund the last four remaining expeditions needed to find the most elusive reptiles in the country as well as cover the majority of the editing and printing costs. Every little donation helps. Click here to find out more about how can you adopt a reptile.
This was an epic experiment overall: 52 experimental units, 4+ years, thousands of person-minutes of lizard surveys, thousands of food web stable isotope samples, several tons of seaweed, and one hurricane that washed it all away.
I think the most interesting thing about this paper is that we did not find what we expected.
For some biological background, a meta-analysis (Yang et al. 2010) of largely observational studies found that populations increase the most and the fastest when consumers respond to resource pulses (brief, unpredictable periods of resource superabundance) via both aggregation and reproduction. To test the prediction that without aggregation the numerical response would be slower and smaller, in the current study we manipulated seaweed on mainlands (as in our previous study, e.g., Spiller et al. 2010, Wright et al. 2013) and also on very small islands (Fig. 1) where aggregation on ecological time scales is not possible.
Despite a bigger N this time around, we did not replicate the numerical response on mainlands that we saw in Spiller et al. (2010). In other words, more seaweed did not result in more lizards on mainlands. Conversely, we saw fast and large population gains on small islands. We did replicate the timing and magnitude of the diet shifts, indicating that lizards were consuming the subsidized resources. So whether resource pulses translate into more individuals is context-dependent, even with the same researchers using the same methods with the same species. In the discussion we talk about what could be driving these differences.
Now to my main story with this post: what happens when you have un-tidy, non-confirmatory results? The first reviews at a top tier ecology journal were very positive about the generality of the questions and the realistic temporal and spatial scale of the experiment. We were rejected for not being able to explain the mechanisms; fair enough. However, this same critique would be true even if we had confirmatory results. I don’t think we would have drawn that critique, or at least it would not have had such a large impact on the editorial decision, with confirmatory results. We next tried at a second-tier ecology journal, and were rejected without review.
I was up for the tenure the year this paper was going through the review process. Pretty much the only way the paper would be accepted pre-dossier would be to go back to the first journal and accept their original offer to shunt to their online-only sister journal. I have happily made that call in the past given different trade-offs. In this case, I felt rejection was largely being driven by the non-confirmatory results, which I stubbornly believed did not compromise the quality of the paper. To me, good science is asking good questions (i.e., rooted in theory) with good design; the value of the paper is not predicated on the outcome of the study. I asked some senior profs in my department for advice and got both, “a published paper is better than no paper” and “do what you would have done regardless of tenure.” I went with the latter because at that point I felt one paper was not going to make or break my diverse contributions over the prior five years.
I decided to try next at The American Naturalist for a couple reasons. One, their checklist for authors signals similar values to mine, such as indicating whether the study was pre-registered. Another was that by chance, Dan Bolnick, current EIC, was in my session at the ESA meeting. Dan announced that he would be holding “office hours” to promote submission to AmNat. I had never pitched a paper to an editor before, but this was made easier since (also by chance) I know Dan from grad school.
I gave Dan my 2-minute pitch, emphasizing that we had unexpected results that we couldn’t fully explain. He opened his response with, “I sympathize…”, and I braced for the polite rejection. But he meant that he literally sympathized, because he had a study with confirmatory results published in a high profile journal, but a later replication with more data was non-confirmatory and ended up several tiers down. He encouraged me to submit (with no guarantees of course), and I leaned in hard to our unexpected results and lack of replication, from the cover letter through supplemental material, being as transparent as possible. It was still a tough and long review process, and the paper has several real limitations, but I am gratified that it got into a top journal on its merits as planned, warts and all, without spin.
We haven’t seen the replication crisis in ecology I think for two main reasons. One is that big field experiments like our pulsed subsidies studies are rarely repeated (for lots of reasons), and two because ecologists are very comfortable with context-dependency. But how often is a lack of replication due to real biological differences that are useful to understand (as I argue was the case in our paper) vs. the statistical issues that plague other disciplines? Ecologists are often taught to cope with non-confirmatory results by reframing to “tell the story you have,” which runs the risk of HARKing, one of the four horsemen of the reproducibility crisis. Preferences for confirmatory results help drive these practices. In our study, the questions, hypotheses, and design were essentially pre-registered in the grant that funded the work, and staying committed to a plan regardless of the results is the best defense against the garden of forking paths.
As for studies rarely being repeated in the first place, I am haunted by a review of restoration studies by Vaughn and Young (2010) that found fewer than 5% of studies were initiated in more than one year, and 76% of studies that did use multiple years found different results in different years. To me this means that we should not inhale too deeply on single studies, we should focus more on replication and less on novelty, and that our inability to replicate some of the results of Spiller et al. 2010 is a feature, not a bug!
If you are interested in learning more about this system, check out Piovia-Scott et al. 2019 which shows that the strength of top-down control by lizards varies predictably over the course of the pulse.
Hey guys!
Hope you have all been OK. I’ve been working on some things, thinking of new anole sticker designs, WRITING. Been pretty productive I feel, and now I’m back, #DidYouAnole is back, the anoles… Have never left this anole website. But thank you for coming back for my posts!
Today’s anole is Anolis fraseri, the Hippie Anole.
This anole is a crown-giant that is native to low montane forests, riparian habitats and orchards in Ecuador and Colombia. The males get up to 109 mm (SVL) and the females, 116 mm.
As you can tell from the pictures, this anole’s colouring is mainly shades of green and olive with striping, and it may have blotches on its head and/or sides that are red or orange, even pink. Like many other anoles, it can change its colour to a dark brown. These colours kind of make the anole look tie-dyed to me, which I think is where its common name comes from (let me know if that’s not the case).
Some individuals may be mistaken for other anoles that occupy the same habitat with similar patterning, but can be told apart by the dewlap colour.
The Hippie Anole is a sit-and-wait predator, relying on crypsis.
According to The Amphibians and Reptiles of Mindo, this anole is widely distributed in the part of the forest with the vegetation cover that it prefers, but is only found in these areas, making it uncommon and possibly endangered.
A note on honourific names (like the name of this anole):
This anole is also referred to as Fraser’s Anole, however regarding recent discussion about scientific racism and honourificnames, I will refer to it by its other name Hippie Anole. When I just started out as a scientist, the history of naming organisms after important figures in science seemed liked a good practice, something I desperately wanted myself, until I learnt more. While we cannot deny their valid contributions to our respective fields, we also cannot overlook their ideas regarding race. As a Black scientist, it is an uncomfortable environment where the people who did not think I was equal to them or even capable of being regarded as a human being are constantly lauded, and I am to study animals that are named after them. A constant reminder. I cannot pick and choose their legacy, I don’t have that privilege as a Black woman, it all stays with me. Our study subjects are magnificent animals, and I would like them to be just that, free from marred legacies.
From the onset of my scientific career I have been fascinated by the pectoral girdle. In its structural and functional diversity it is barely rivaled by any other skeletal part of the tetrapod body. Anoles, in particular, employ their forelimbs not only in locomotion, but also in various routines of display, grooming, feeding, or mating. It is likely that the different functional roles fulfilled by the pectoral limb and girdle impose varying, and potentially opposing, selective pressures onto the evolution of its structural form.
Jane Peterson briefly alluded to the structural variance displayed by the different anole ecomorphs, relating them to specific locomotor requirements by providing brief descriptions in her thesis (1973) and the First Anolis Newsletter (1974). However, beyond this initial work, and a few qualitative assessments in papers regarding phylogenetically informative characters, very little is known about the variability of the anole pectoral girdle.
Right scapulocoracoid of three anole species, representative of the Jamaican lineage. The arrow denotes anterior. (via Tinius et al. 2020)
In many ways, our recent publication in the Annals of Anatomy (Tinius et al. 2020) is a dream come true (at least for me), as it allowed us to finally visualise the patterns of morphological variation that Peterson (1974) could only communicate in descriptions. Because the shoulder girdle is comprised of multiple elements that are mobile with respect to one another, this paper only investigated one of its moieties: the scapulocoracoid. This paired structure spans the entire height of the body wall, is comprised of developmentally very different compounds, and directly connects the forelimb to a midline element, the presternal plate. These attributes made it a great starting point for our investigations of the pectoral girdle.
In describing the scapulocoracoid of two non-anoline iguanids, Polychrus and Pristidactylus, we anchored our comparisons in two well-studied and closely related lizards. We then expanded on this anatomical framework by comparing all representatives of the monophyletic Jamaican anole radiation to their respective ecomorph representatives on Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. We tried to take full account of the variability of the scapulocoracoid by examining it both qualitatively, in images and comparative description, and quantitatively, through geometric morphometric analysis.
Canonical Variate Analysis (CVA) of the right scapulocoracoid of Greater Antillean anoles, including warp image of the scapulocoracoid denoting shape changes along CV1 and CV2. (via Tinius et al. 2020)
We found that regardless of potential phylogenetic constraints on skeletal morphology, morphospatial occupancy differs markedly between ecomorph groups. Unexpectedly, twig anoles show the most distinctive shape of the scapulocoracoid, with a relatively tall scapula and anteroposteriorly short coracoid, similar to the situation found in chameleons (Fischer et al. 2010). But despite a significant overlap in morphospatial occupancy, the other three ecomorphs examined (trunk-ground, trunk-crown, and crown-giant) also exhibit trends towards a specialized scapulocoracoid morphology, such as a relatively wide/cylindrical scapulocoracoid in trunk-ground anoles.
These variations in form likely impact the size and vectors of muscles attaching to the scapulocoracoid. One muscle group that is likely particularly impacted by the differences in scapulocoracoid form is the M. serratus anterior. This muscle group originates laterally on the cervical ribs and inserts on the medial aspect of the suprascapula. The M. serratus anterior group stabilizes the scapulocoracoid during locomotion and protracts/retracts it along the body wall. The anteroposteriorly more extensive suprascapula of crown-giant anoles likely facilitates more forceful scapular retraction, through the relatively greater attachment area for this muscle and the anterior disposition of its insertion area. Contrastingly, the relatively tall scapula of twig forms likely allows for a greater moment arm acting through this muscle group, while the anteroposteriorly short suprascapula facilitates more precise protraction/retraction of the scapulocoracoid.
Right scapulocoracoid of Anolis insolitus in a) lateral, and b) medial view, showing the attachment sites of major muscle groups that act upon the scapulocoracoid. (via Tinius et al. 2020)
My only regret about this project is the exclusion of Cuban anoles, which markedly limited our ability to compare patterns in a wider phylogenetic context. Most of the crown-giant and trunk-crown anoles examined belong to their own ecologically homogenous clade, making it impossible to discern ecological from morphological signal.
The Jamaican Anolis clade provides a glimpse into what might be achieved with a phylogenetically broader sample, as it represents four major ecomorph groups (five, if you attribute A. opalinus to the trunk group) plus two non-ecomorph species within a seven-species radiation. Despite the relatively young age of the Jamaican clade, its ecomorph representatives exhibit a push towards specialized morphologies of the scapulocoracoid, even if this level of specialization is markedly smaller than in their Puerto-Rican and Hispaniolan relatives. A future widening of our sample should allow us to answer some intriguing questions regarding the retention and diversification of ecomorphologically specialized forms within distinct phylogenetic lineages.
Literature cited
Fischer, M.S, Krause, C. & Lilje, K.E. (2010): Evolution of chameleon locomotion, or how to become arboreal as a reptile.─ Zoology, 113:67-74.
Peterson, J.A. (1973): Adaptation for arboreal locomotion in the shoulder region of lizards.─ Ph.D. thesis, University of Chicago.
Peterson, J.A. (1974) [In:] Williams, E.E. (ed.) The First Anolis Newsletter. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.
Tinius, A., Russell, A.P., Jamniczky, H.A. & Anderson, J.S. (2020): Ecomorphological associations of scapulocoracoid form in Greater Antillean Anolis lizards.─ Annals of Anatomy, 231; doi.org/10.1016/j.aanat.2020.151527.
In August, we published a paper in the Caribbean Journal of Science entitled, “Sleeping Behavior of the Secretive Puerto Rican Twig Anole, Anolis occultus.” Check out our new post on the Chipojo Lab blog about the paper!
Levi Storks, Manuel Leal. 2020. Sleeping Behavior of the Secretive Puerto Rican Twig Anole, Anolis occultus. Caribbean Journal of Science 50(1):178–87.
We’ve previously had posts about green anoles, Anolis carolinensis, introduced to the Ogasawara Islands, and the efforts to eradicate them. Now a report has implicated the anoles in the possible extinction of a butterfly species. Here’s an article from the japan times:
Blue Japanese butterfly endemic to Ogasawara Islands feared extinct
A small blue butterfly known as Celastrina ogasawaraensis may be the first butterfly species native to Japan to go extinct. | TOKYO ZOOLOGICAL PARK SOCIETY / VIA KYODO
The Environment Ministry said Thursday that a species of small butterfly endemic to Japan’s southern islands is feared to have gone extinct because all artificially bred butterflies and worms of its type have died.
In the butterfly’s natural habitats, in the Ogasawara Islands some 1,000 km south of Tokyo, no individuals from the species have been confirmed since 2018, the ministry said.
Unless the blue butterfly measuring just over 1 cm long is found in the wild, it will be the first butterfly species native to Japan to go extinct.
The ministry believes that a decline in the butterfly population is at least partially attributable to foreign lizards on the remote islands.
Efforts to preserve the species, known as Celastrina ogasawaraensis, had been under way since 2005 by Tama Zoological Park in western Tokyo and also at a facility in Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden in the capital since last October.
But all of the butterflies and worms raised at these facilities died in July and earlier this month, the ministry said, adding that repeated inbreeding might have led to an accumulation of hazardous genes, ultimately causing death.
The small butterfly is currently categorized as endangered on the Environment Ministry’s Red List. The ministry is expected to decide whether the species should now be listed as extinct.
The Ogasawara Islands are known as the Galapagos Islands of Asia due to their unique flora and fauna after eons of separation from any continent.
While the remote islands are growing popular as a tourist spot for beautiful subtropical scenery and whale watching, limited access via a 24-hour ship voyage available only once once per week helps to preserve the wildlife and natural ecosystems.
The volcanic islands, now administered by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, belonged to the United States after World War II before being returned to Japan in 1968.
Plasticity and evolutionary convergence in the locomotor skeleton of Greater Antillean Anolis lizards
In eLife
Feiner, Jackson, Munch, Radersma, and Uller
Abstract
Plasticity can put evolution on repeat if development causes species to generate similar morphologies in similar environments. Anolis lizards offer the opportunity to put this role of developmental plasticity to the test. Following colonization of the four Greater Antillean islands, Anolis lizards independently and repeatedly evolved six ecomorphs adapted to manoeuvring different microhabitats. By quantifying the morphology of the locomotor skeleton of 95 species, we demonstrate that ecomorphs on different islands have diverged along similar trajectories. However, microhabitat-induced morphological plasticity differed between species and did not consistently improve individual locomotor performance. Consistent with this decoupling between morphological plasticity and locomotor performance, highly plastic features did not show greater evolvability, and plastic responses to microhabitat were poorly aligned with evolutionary divergence between ecomorphs. The locomotor skeleton of Anolis may have evolved within a subset of possible morphologies that are highly accessible through genetic change, enabling adaptive convergence independently of plasticity.
Carlos Guarnizo along with several other scientists created Ciencia Café, pa’ Sumercé, which is a space where citizens can access first-hand (directly from researchers) excellent research in science and technology that Colombians are doing inside and outside the country. At the same time, this space offers scientists and researchers the opportunity to meet citizens and understand the concerns and interests of the public; all of this through respectful dialogue, promoting an appreciation for science and technology by encouraging everyone to participate.
Two weeks ago, I was invited to one of the interviews from Ciencia Café, pa’ Sumercé, in which I talk about two different things that are not necessarily exclusive: science and racism. During the interview, Carlos asked me about why I decided to study biology and lizards, especially, he was interested in knowing how I ended up doing a Ph.D. with Jonathan Losos. After I talked about that part of my professional life, Carlos asked me about the BLM movement and its consequences in Colombia. I told him that despite the miles apart that Colombia is from the USA, we – the black community – suffer from the same kind of discrimination (punctual and systemic racism) in our daily bases, and I also told him that it is important to talk about racism in our families and in our work areas. At the end of the interview, I told a short story about how the Anolis chloris photo I took in 2016 ended up as the cover image in Evolution in 2019.
Hey!
I’m taking a break for two weeks, but instead of leaving you without a post for two weeks in a row, here’s Anolis porcatus which I mentioned I had tweeted about the week before my first post!
Anolis porcatus is the Cuban Green anole. A trunk-crown anole with a dewlap ranging in colour from reddish to pink. Like it’s name says, it’s from Cuba but it has now been introduced to Florida, Brazil and Hispanola. And one was found in the… Canary Islands?? I’m jealous. That sounds like a great vacation.
As you’ve seen from pictures, Anolis carolinensis and A. porcatus look extremely similar (for obvious reasons now haha).
Well that’s because, they’re the same species. As discussed in the Anolis carolinensispost, the American Green anole is not a distinct species.
I’ve mentioned that I’ve been going though the proposed series of anoles called the carolinensis series. They’re all trunk-crown anoles and look very similar, even identical like the American Green and Cuban Green. Some of the members are found in Cuba & that’s where their common ancestor is thought to originate.
The idea was that Anolis porcatus made its way to America a very long time ago and then, due to speciation, along came A. carolinenis. But because the two can interbreed, that means there’s no reproductive isolation, doesn’t it? That’s not all, but you can read about it from Dr. Losos’ post and the paper itself!
I hope you all have a great week!! I’ll see you on September 3rd. Thank you so much for reading!
Two weeks ago, I was invited to one of the 
