The Not-So-Bitter Future of Coffee: Anolis Lizards as Biocontrol Agents in Mainland and Island Agroecosystems

Figure 7. Anolis gundlachi, Orocovis, Puerto Rico.

Figure 1. Anolis gundlachi, Orocovis, Puerto Rico.

The agroecosystems that produce the life-sustaining stimulant we know as “coffee” have long been used as model systems to study complex ecological interactions and ecosystem services, with numerous studies revealing trophic interactions among coffee plants, pests, and pest-predators. Despite the high abundance and overlapping distribution of Anolis lizards, relatively few studies have addressed their functional role in agriculture. In our recent study titled, “Anolis Lizards as Biocontrol Agents in Mainland and Island Agroecosystems,” my colleagues and I explore the biocontrol potential of anoles against the world’s most devastating coffee pest, the coffee berry borer (Coleoptera: Hypothenemus hampei) in mainland and island settings.

My vision of agricultural landscapes as post-apocalyptic biodiversity deserts was trumped the minute I stepped foot onto a shade coffee farm in Orocovis, Puerto Rico. Far from the dystopian nightmare that I had envisioned, this diversified shade coffee farm bustled with the herpetological glory and natural complexity of a native forest (Fig. 1). Furthermore – and perhaps most importantly – the farmer complained not of issues with crop yield, pests, and disease.

As a plant, coffee occurs naturally in the forest understory and is cultivated traditionally among native shade trees as an understory crop. While pressures to increase production have led many farmers to transition to more intensive practices (i.e., the reduction of shade cover and application of agrochemicals to manage crop pests), these methods are becoming increasingly unsustainable and insufficient in light of emerging biological threats. In addition to climate change and the emerging coffee rust disease, the coffee berry borer poses a unique threat for dozens of coffee growing nations and nearly 20 million small-scale farmers who depend on coffee production as a primary commodity and means of subsistence. While the coffee berry borer (CBB) is capable of inducing 60-90% reductions in yields and persists unaffected by topical pesticides, our understanding of the predator-prey interactions that drive its top-down control and how these factors vary across management regimes and eco-geographic space has profound socio-economic and environmental implications for biological control.

Representative photographs of diversified shade coffee in Mexico (a), diversified shade coffee in Puerto Rico (b), intensive sun coffee in Mexico (c), and intensive sun coffee in Puerto Rico (d).

Figure 2. Representative photographs of diversified shade coffee in Mexico (a), diversified shade coffee in Puerto Rico (b), intensive sun coffee in Mexico (c), and intensive sun coffee in Puerto Rico (d).

To assess the biocontrol capacity of anoles, we conducted experimental and field-based tests of how CBB populations respond to anole predation across mainland (Mexico) and island (Puerto Rico) coffee farms with parallel forms of land-use intensity. Anole functional response and infestation reduction potential were assessed by simulating pest outbreaks in the lab, while coffee farms were surveyed along complementary gradients of intensification. Organic, diversified shade coffee farms were representative of low-intensity production, and sun coffee monocultures that included the application of agrochemicals were representative of high intensification (Fig. 2).

Crested Anole Cannibalism in Miami!

cristatellus_cannibalism

Take a look at this picture uploaded to iNaturalist by user braddockbiotech, a Middle School student from Miami-Dade County who is recording observations of non-native anoles in Florida as part of our LizardsOnTheLoose project (in association with the Fairchild Challenge, you can read more about this project on Anole Annals here and here).

The picture shows an adult male Puerto Rican crested anole (Anolis cristatellus) chomping down on a younger juvenile, which is frantically displaying back at it. Why is the smaller anole displaying? An innate anti-predatory response? Or perhaps a targeted response at the male to highlight they are conspecifics?

This year we are incorporating iNaturalist into our #LizardsOnTheLoose project, which aims to record the distributions and habitat use of non-native anoles throughout South Florida. We hope to get more fascinating natural history insights like this as the submissions roll in! If you’re interested in learning more about our #LizardsOnTheLoose anole project, please take a look at this video:

Anole Photo Contest 2017: Call for Submissions!

Anolis vermiculatus, by Raimundo López-Silvero Martínez

Another year, another field season (or seasons) come and gone, and now it’s time to share the great anoles we’ve seen! Get ready for the Anole Annals Photo Contest: 2017 Edition.

As in previous years, the Anole Annals team wants to see your best anole photographs for our 2018 calendar.

Here’s how it works: anyone who wants to participate will submit their favorite photos. The editors of Anole Annals will choose a set of 30-40 finalists from that initial pool. We’ll then put those photos up for a vote on this here blog, and the 12 winning photos will be chose by readers of Anole Annals, as well as a panel of anole photography experts. The grand prize winner and runner-up will have his/her photo featured on the front cover of the 2017 Anole Annals calendar, second place winner will have his/her photo featured on the back cover, and they’ll both win a free calendar!

Before we move on, I’d like to issue a correction from last year’s calendar – due to an unfortunate email miscommunication, we accidentally attributed several photos to the wrong photographer. By the time we realized our mistake, the calendar was already in print. We would like to sincerely apologize to Raimundo López-Silvero Martínez and Rosario Basail​, whose photos, Anolis vermiculatus (September) and Anolis garridoi (April) respectively, we mis-credited. But please, take a look and appreciate them here! We will be sure to be more careful this year.

garridoi

Anolis garridoi, by Rosario Basail​

Back to business. The rules: submit your photos (as many as you’d like) as email attachments to anoleannalsphotos@gmail.com. To make sure that your submissions arrive, please send an accompanying email without any attachments to confirm that we’ve received them. Photos must be at least 150 dpi and print to a size of 11 x 17 inches. If you are unsure how to resize your images, the simplest thing to do is to submit the raw image files produced by your digital camera (or if you must, a high quality scan of a printed image).  If you elect to alter your own images, don’t forget that it’s always better to resize than to resample. Images with watermarks or other digital alterations that extend beyond color correction, sharpening and other basic editing will not be accepted. We are not going to deal with formal copyright law and ask only your permission to use your image for the calendar and related content on Anole Annals (more specifically, by submitting your photos, you are agreeing to allow us to use them in the calendar). We, in turn, agree that your images will never be used without attribution and that we will not profit financially from their use (the small amount of royalties we receive are used to purchase calendars for the winners). Please only submit photos you’ve taken yourself, not from other photographers–by submitting photos, you are declaring that you are the photographer and have the authority to allow the photograph to be used in the calendar if it is chosen.

Please provide a short description of the photo that includes: (1) the species name, (2) the location where the photo was taken, and (3) any other relevant information. Be sure to include your full name in your email as well. Deadline for submission is November 6, 2017.

Good luck, and we look forward to seeing your photos!

Fishing Anole Part II: The Lizard Actually Catches a Guppy!

We saw the brown anole jumping into the water in part I, now we see the gory, but delicious, aftermath!

Brown Anole Goes Fishing for Guppies

 

 

Egret Eats Green Anole

Photo by John Karges

Photo by John Karges

We’ve seen this before. Anoles are, alas, no match for these large and wily marauders. John Karges provides the story: “The egret was flying down the riparian woodland corridor over a side channel, and abruptly landed in the mid-story thicket overhanging the stream and immediately began a stalk. It lunge-grabbed the anole, and very quickly devoured the adult anole in a matter of seconds.”

And here’s where it went down: 2 Oct 2016 San Antonio Mission NHP, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas.

And the inevitable outcome.

Photo by John Karges

Photo by John Karges

Keep Your Enemies Closer: Green Anole Seeks Safety in the Coils of a Snake

The head of the Green Anole is circled in white. The tolerance of the Cornsnake was perhaps aided by what appeared to be full belly.

The head of the Green Anole is circled in white. The tolerance of the Cornsnake was perhaps aided by what appeared to be full belly.

Snakes love anoles, though their affection is seldom reciprocated. Unsurprising. But, it seems a snake/anole relationship which leaves the anole happy and undigested is not beyond the realm of possibility. In a recent natural history note, published in Herpetological Review, James Stroud and I describe an unlikely friendship I happened upon while working as a field technician in Miami FL. While collecting samples and doing routine maintenance on an automatic water sampler in Everglades National Park, I found a Green Anole (Anolis carolinensis) nestled within the coils of a large Cornsnake (Pantherophis guttatus) inside the external battery housing of the sampling unit. At first, my delight was focused on the snake (such encounters were a big perk of the job), but then I noticed a slender head regarding me cautiously from the safety of the coils. After a moment, the lizard slowly pulled its head fully underneath its protector, and I closed the lid on the snake/lizard duo, content the battery was in working condition. It was a cool day, and I was happy that I did not need to disturb the animals.

Given the tendency of snakes to make meals out of anoles, this encounter struck me as odd. After casually mentioning it to James Stroud, he immediately suggested this as a possible incident of kleptothermy, which describes a thermoregulatory process by which an organism regulates its body temperature by stealing the warmth of other organisms. The snake was certainly much larger, and so even though it was a fellow ectotherm, snuggling up to it would have likely provided some increase in thermal inertia. Thermal benefits aside, did the oblivious(?) guardian also provide protection against smaller Cornsnakes, perhaps more used to preying on anoles of that size? Did the lizard even realize what it had decided to make its bed upon when it crawled into the dark confines of the battery housing? We may never know.

Anolis scriptus on Turks and Caicos, and the Threat of Rats

Concerns Raised over Introduction of Festive Anole to Bermuda

From the September 28, 2017 edition of The Royal Gazette, the daily newspaper of Bermuda.

Fears over lizard arrival

Jonathan Bell

  • Thriving: the brown anole, a new lizard species believed to have arrived from Florida (Photograph supplied)

Bermuda’s latest lizard arrival, the brown anole, appears to be thriving but is prompting concern over the island’s endangered natives.

The lizards, first seen in 2014 and recently spotted on the grounds of Aberfeldy Nursery in Paget, are suspected to have arrived from Florida.

One of that state’s most abundant lizards, the anole arrived there from the Caribbean, where it is native to the Bahamas and Cuba.

Popular as pets but aggressive breeders in the wild, the lizard, distinguished by ridges on its back, has proliferated in the southern United States.

According to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, Bermuda has two distinct populations of brown anoles.

Genetic analysis shows that the two groups came from “separate founding events”, meaning the second did not arise from the first.

Noting the lizard’s capacity to spread rapidly, Jonathan Starling, executive director of the environmental group Greenrock, voiced concern that the anole would ultimately crowd out Bermuda’s imperilled skinks.

“Unlike the three other Anolis species known to be in Bermuda, the common blue Jamaican, the Warwick or Antiguan and the Barbados, this one is primarily a terrestrial species, the rest being arboreal or tree dwelling,” Mr Starling said.

“The endemic Bermuda skink, already at critically low populations, is also a primarily terrestrial species, so this new lizard poses a much bigger threat to it than the others did.

“I am not aware of the current range of this new lizard but I believe it is still confined within Pembroke and Paget parishes, so at the moment it is not coming into conflict with the remaining known skink populations. However it is likely their range will expand and come into contact with known skink populations within a decade, if not sooner.”

The unwelcome development is the latest of many threats to the endemic skink, which are easily trapped and killed by discarded bottles and cans.

Skinks are also at jeopardy from storms, as well as predation from other invasive species such as cats and rats.

“We’d hope that new initiatives, such as mandatory recycling or a bottle bill, would at least reduce that particular threat to skinks, which would likely benefit them in handling the novel threat posed by this invasive lizard,” Mr Starling said.

Keeping Up With The Anole Literature

For anole biologists and enthusiasts, there are several ways to keep up with the latest and greatest anole research. These include RSS feeds, social media outlets such as Twitter, and email alerts from websites like Google Scholar (or from Anole Annals! – see the box on the right-hand side of this page). Nonetheless, the amount of literature that already exists on our beloved anoles can sometimes seem overwhelming. Modern search engines have made identifying this work easier than ever before, and we believe that continuing to promote the visibility and accessibility of anole literature will only strengthen our research community. With that in mind, we have created a resource that we hope will be helpful to those of us who spend our time steeped in anole literature.

The resource is a bibliography of Anolis literature, through the end of 2016, which we have compiled via searches of manuscript databases and manual curation. Here are some things you should know:

  • We intend to update the bibliography at the end of each calendar year. Thus papers published in 2017 will appear early in 2018.
  • The bibliography certainly contains errors and omissions. You can help us improve it! The file used to generate the collection can be downloaded, edited, or updated on GitHub. Any suggested edits will be sent to us for approval, and we’re excited for those start coming in.
  • The bibliography is a BibTeX file, a format used by the Latex markup language. Free software like Bibdesk, JabRef, and BibTool can be used to open BibTex files directly.

Lastly, and most importantly:

  • Most major citation software packages (e.g. Endnote, Papers, Mendeley, Zotero) can import BibTeX files. By importing the BibTeX filed used to generate this bibliography into your own citation manager, you can have the full value of this collection at your fingertips. Major benefits of doing so include the ability to easily search and filter within the bibliography, and of course, to instantaneously generate a list of citations from any subset of the full list.

We hope that AA readers will find this resource useful. We also look forward to hearing your suggestions for its improvement! Lastly, we’d like to thank members of the Losos Lab for assisting with the construction and curation of the collection.

This post was co-written by Anthony Geneva and Nick Herrmann.

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