Fast moving grass-bush anoles were good noosing practice.
Ten days into my first field work experience, and I’m loving it. I am in Puerto Rico with Travis Ingram, and we are studying the interactions between Anolis gundlachi and Anolis cristatellus, which requires us to catch lots of anoles. I had never noosed anoles before, but I figured I could get the hang of it pretty quickly. Little did I know the challenges and adventures that were in store…
Photo by Scott Hartley.
Details at Chipojolab.
I’ve recently arrived at El Verde Field Station in Puerto Rico for my first real field season working with anoles. My main goal is to carry out enclosure experiments looking at the different components (resource competition and predation) of the interactions between anole species. I’ll post more about the research later, but for now I want to give a rundown of the enclosures I’ll be using.
Have you heard about the extremely expensive (and delicious) coffee from Indonesia made from beans that have passed through the digestive system of civets (hence called “cat poo” coffee because civets are sometimes called civet cats? Did you know that a similar coffee is produced in Central America, made from beans pooped out by Norops anoles? Well, that’s not what this post is about.
Rather, it’s about several recent studies on anoles in coffee plantations. One recent study, discussed at further length by Rich Glor, compares the biodiversity of sun and shade coffee plantations in Puerto Rico. The authors note at the outset that biodiversity tends to be higher in shade coffee areas, and wanted to see whether that was true in Puerto Rico. In a truly herculean effort, they censused the lizards, birds, insects and vegetation in six plantations, three shade, three sunny. This was a lot of work. Just for the lizards, they individually marked (via paint spray gun) nearly 5000 anoles.
It’s immediately clear to anyone visiting the Greater Antilles that humans have had a dramatic impact on natural environments. Even in those areas that remain forested and seemingly pristine, it isn’t difficult to find the stray coffee bush or mango tree. Indeed, some understory crops, such as coffee and cacao, have traditionally been grown under an intact canopy. These traditional practices have been changing over the past few decades, however, as large commercial operations have favored the efficiency of clear-cutting and subsequent cultivation in open sun. The impacts of this shift from shade to sun cultivation on biodiversity have been debated for decades, with most studies indicating overall losses in biodiversity and super-abundance of a few common species in sun plantations.
In spite of the prevalence of agriculture in the Greater Antilles, relatively few studies have investigated the abundance of anoles and other lizards in different types of agriculturally disturbed habits (but see my first first authored paper!). A new study by Borkhataria et al. (2012) conducts a comparative analysis of species abundance of birds, anoles, and invertebrates in shade versus sun coffee on Puerto Rico. This study is a welcome addition to the literature because the portion of coffee on Puerto Rico grown in sun plantations has doubled in recent years, although overall coffee production has declined.
This one can be purchased from Zazzle, and if you go to the bottom of the page, you’ll see a variety of other fridge magnets. Who knew there was such variety?
Into every life, a little rain must fall…but sometimes not enough. Our Bahamian brown anoles are delicate little flowers. Too cold and rainy, and they don’t come out. But too hot and dry, they also hunker down. Too windy–nap time. Like the three bears (or was it the little blonde girl?), it has to be just right.
And that put us in a bind. As our trip to the Bahamas wound down, we were running out of time, and as we got to our boat launch site, the weather didn’t look good.
Storm a-comin'
Waiting for the storm? Or Godot?
All we could do is wait for the storm to arrive. No point going out–it was too cold for the lizards to be active. And finally, the storm arrived, and we took cover in the only shelter available.
The relatively sparse anole holdings of the Cornell University Museum of Vertebrates.
I recently asked which museums have the largest holdings of anoles. I’ll now ask the obvious next question: which species are most represented in these museum holdings? Shouldn’t be much of a surprise: the first five species I checked were, indeed, the top five. But I’ll give one hint: the top five in Al Schwartz’s collection at the University of Kansas are not the top five overall.
So, who can name the top five, and in the correct order? And a bonus question: which species is number six?
Lizard Motion Detection Gizmo. Read all about it at http://chipojolab.blogspot.com/2012/05/motion-detection.html
We all know that anoles have a keen sense of vision. But how much does an insect have to move to draw a lizard’s attention? And do species vary in their sensory abilities? Dave Steinberg of Duke University is in Puerto Rico, trying to find out.
Anolis smaragdinus
Picture this: I’m walking back to my room in Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas and as I approach the building, a green anole (A. smaragdinus) that was on the side of the fence enclosing the air conditioner (marked x) runs down the fence to the sidewalk, then hightails it on the sidewalk–legs cycling furiously–running straight towards me. It gets to the palm tree just before I do, then dashes furiously up to the top of the palm tree. What a sight! I could read it in his eyes–“gotta’ get to that tree before that big lunkhead does. Gotta’ run, fast, fast fast.” Didn’t anyone tell him he’s not terrestrial? Couldn’t he have just run up the building wall?
The escape route
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