I am interested in whether, how, and why ecology shapes evolution (and evolution shapes ecology) through time, with an emphasis on microevolutionary pattern and process, adaptation, and field experiments. I completed my Ph.D. on Anolis lizards in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. I am currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Texas, Austin studying threespine stickleback. They're not anoles, but they're cool too.
The answer is: The highest point in the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
The question is: What is Mount Scenery?
At a towering 870m, the active volcano Mt. Scenery on the island of Saba (pronounced say-buh), is the correct response. Saba is an island near St. Kitts and St. Barts in the Lesser Antilles and is the smallest special municipality of the Netherlands. At only 5 sq. miles (13 sq. km), it doesn’t have too many people (1,824 in 2001) or terrestrial herps (7). Of those herps, only one is endemic to Saba, and that is, of course, an anole – Anolis sabanus! You can find more information on the rest of the Saban herps at Caribherp.org.
Regular readers of Anole Annals will know that, like humans, anoles are parasitized by malaria. It’s a different lineage of malaria specialized for lizards but it is malaria none-the-less.
What readers of Anole Annals might not know, however, is that anoles don’t seem to suffer from the cold, the flu, or whooping cough (not according to a quick literature search, anyways).
These illnesses do afflict humans, however, and this winter season is shaping up to be a serious one. Perhaps you have already experienced this.
Top things to do to avoid getting and/or passing on the flu this season:
1) Wash your hands frequently.
2) Avoid touching your mouth, nose, and eyes.
3) Stay home if you’re sick. Keep your kids home if they’re sick. And encourage your colleagues to stay home if they’re sick.
4) Get your flu shot and your pertussis booster.
5) Encourage your friends to get their shots too. Herd immunity!
6) Develop lizardy super powers that render you invincible.
PS: The flu-shot cannot give you the flu by accident. This is a pernicious myth. The virus particles injected in the flu shot are dead, zapped, kaput. You may feel a little under the weather as your body works to develop antibodies but that’s a whole lot better than getting the actual flu. I felt fine after my flu shot.
I recently visited the Boston Institute of Contemporary AnolesArt (ICA) and snapped the following picture. Please accept my apologies for the blurriness and my excuse that this was taken with a camera phone from the ICA’s glass elevator while being shuttled to the art installations on the fourth floor of the museum.
On the level second from the bottom, there’s a lizard with clear diamond back pattern on its back, highly reminiscent of females from Anolis sagrei and several other trunk ground anole species.
I’ve captured a part of an approximately three-story piece of nature-themed art, made mostly from cardboard, bamboo, and paper cut-outs, that featured likenesses of animals from across the animal kingdom. It seems that anoles inspired the piece’s numerous lizard cut-outs. In the picture, you can see a lizard that is clearly not geckoid, the usual suspect in this sort of thing. Rather, it has a head shape and diamond back pattern strikingly reminiscent of a female Anolis sagrei. This was the only picture I was able to acquire yet the other lizards in this art piece also had the characteristic brown anole gestalt.
If you were to cast lizards as characters in a remake of The Great Gatsby, anoles, of course, would have to be cast as protagonist Jay Gatsby. “What Why Gatsby?” you might ask. Well, like Gatsby, anoles have gaudy, aggressive displays that show fitness and define territory. Also like Gatsby, (SPOILER ALERT) anoles cannot seem to escape their past (for the headbob part of their display, at least).
In a recently published paper, Terry Ord investigated whether past ancestry explains variation in Anolis diplays better than evolution by natural selection. To begin to ask this question, Terry compiled data on the average time of headbob and dewlap bouts for species for a Western Caribbean Anolis lineage (Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Cuba) and for an Eastern Caribbean lineage (Puerto Rico and Hispaniola). The data and phylogenetic relationships are shown in Figure 1.
In our comparison of mainland and island species turnover, we sampled mainland communities by randomly superimposing each of the Caribbean islands on the mainland five times. In each of these mainland island-shaped regions, we then tallied how many species were present and then measured turnover between regions.
Oceanic islands are famous for their high endemism. We all love Darwin’s finches, Hawaiian honeycreepers, Komodo Dragons, and all those weird things on Australia. These endemic wonders suggest that islands may be home to unique processes of diversification. However, there are many mainland regions that rival islands in their level of endemicity, especially in mountainous regions that have strong dispersal barriers and environmental gradients. Thus, you could ask, are islands truly special?
As regular readers of this site will know, anoles are remarkable for the repeated, independent evolution of ecomorphs on the four islands of the Greater Antilles. Each ecomorph is defined by a suite of ecological and morphological traits that appear to be shaped by natural selection.
In a recent paper, Kolbe et al. ask whether those suites of morphological traits are actually suites. In other words: is convergence in form across islands reached by evolving the same sets of characters in a similar manner? Do all trunk-ground ecomorphs, for example, achieve relatively long limbs by growing both the femur and the humerus (i.e. those traits covary together)? Or do some trunk-ground anoles achieve long limbs by only growing the tibia and the radius while others grow the femur and radius etc.?
Covariance ellipses for 8 species for five trait sets. Find the ellipse for Anolis distichus in the first column. It suggests that A. distichus will have a short humerus when it has a short femur and a long humerus when it has a long femur and this covariance is fairly tight (an oblong ellipse). For lamella# and femur length, however, there isn’t a tight relationship (a circular ellipse) and it’s hard to predict lamella# from femur length. Note the similar shape of the covariance ellipses for the three trunk-ground anoles, A. gundlachi, A. sagrei, and A. cybotes. These suggest convergent evolution of trait sets in that ecomorph.
Understanding whether and how different sets of traits vary together can give a good understanding of how natural selection and evolutionary history combine to explain the convergent evolution of Anolis ecomorphs.
Early specimens and scientific drawings of Anolis proboscis
At the Evolution 2012 meeting, after a scheduling snafu delayed his talk fifteen minutes and prompted panic from an anticipatory audience, Jonathan Losos mused about the natural history and ecology of the Ecuadorian Horned Anole, Anolis proboscis. In case you missed his talk, read all about the rediscovery of A. proboscis.
Following the talk, an audience member reported seeing a horned anole during fieldwork in the Guiana Shield. She attempted to catch it, but it eluded her. From her description, it sounded like A. phyllorhinus, but A. phyllorhinus has only been reported in the Brazilian Amazon. A. proboscis is Ecuadorian and the third known proboscid anole, A. laevis, isfrom the Peruvian Amazon.
At the very least, this suggests a range extension for A. phyllorhinus. Or, there could be a new species of proboscid anole waiting to be described in the Guiana Shield! Has anyone else seen this anole?
MIGUEL TREFAUT RODRIGUES, VINICIUS XAVIER, GABRIEL SKUK, AND DANTE PAVAN. (2002) NEW SPECIMENS OF ANOLIS PHYLLORHINUS (SQUAMATA, POLYCHROTIDAE): THE FIRST FEMALE OF THE SPECIES AND OF PROBOSCID ANOLES. PAPEIS AVULSOS DE ZOOLOGICA, S. PAULO: 42, 363-380.
JONATHAN B. LOSOS, MELISSA L. WOOLLEY, D. LUKE MAHLER, OMAR TORRES-CARVAJAL, KRISTEN E. CRANDELL, ERIC W. SCHAAD, ANDREA E. NARVAÉZ, & , FERNANDO AYALA-VARELA, AND ANTHONY HERREL (2012). NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE LITTLE-KNOWN ECUADORIAN HORNED ANOLE, ANOLIS PROBOSCIS Breviora, 531 DOI: 10.3099/531.1
Anolis carolinensis - the green anole. Photo by Neil Losin
The Anolis carolinensis – A. sagrei interaction in the SE United States has been discussed on quite a few occasions on this site (see [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] and others). Anolis carolinensis is the only anole native to the US but A. sagrei has invaded much of the former’s range by inhabiting nearly all of Florida, some of southern Georgia, and parts of Louisiana and Texas. The Anolis community has focused a great deal of attention asking: what is the ecological, behavioral, and evolutionary effect of A. sagrei on A. carolinensis.
A new paper by Jessica Edwards and Simon Lailvaux of the University of New Orleans, “Display behavior and habitat use in single and mixed populations of Anolis carolinensis and Anolis sagrei lizards,” explores this interaction even further.
Postage stamp for Anolis extremus, the Barbados Anole
Although advertisements on the Boston MBTA are trying to convince me that one visits Barbados for its white beaches and plush resorts, I know that the herpetofauna is the real draw!
ographical Jeopardy.
