We’ve had a lot of discussion of perch height in the green anole, A. carolinensis, and whether or not greens shift their habitat use downward in places where brown anoles, A. sagrei, don’t occur. AA’s man in Georgia, Janson Jones, reported last year that he often found greens very near to the ground, even on water plants. It’s a new year, things are warming up, and the greens are getting active. Janson has vowed to keep a close eye on all things anole this year, and a while back he just posted his first report over on Dust Tracks on the Web. Early reports are that the green anoles are messing with our minds again. Let’s see what happens as the summer progresses.
In a monumental undertaking, Alexander Pyron and colleagues have just produced a molecular phylogeny for 4,161 species of lizards (including snakes), more than 40% of the 9400+ species described to date. The paper, now available online at BMC Evolutionary Biology, is a blockbuster, containing 28 figures, one an overview of the entire phylogeny and the remainder walking through lizard-life one clade at a time.
The analysis is based on sequence data from 12 commonly used and phylogenetically informative molecular markers (seven nuclear genes, five mitochondrial). On average, 12,896 base pairs of sequence data are available per species and, as is necessary in an endeavor such as this, the data set is incomplete, with an average of only 19% of base pair data being available for any given species.
The results are generally very concordant with recent molecular phylogenies, perhaps not surprising given that these data have been used in the most recent studies. The overall picture of lizard phylogeny is little-changed from what we’ve seen in recent molecular phylogenetic publications, but there are a few surprises at lower levels. You’ll have to peruse the paper yourself to check out your favorite group, as there’s way too much in it to go through here.
Of course, what readers of AA really want to know is: what does the phylogeny say about anole relationships? And, in fact, the results are for the most part concordant with previous studies. Perhaps surprising to many readers, the analysis supports the monophyly of the eight clades recognized by Nicholson et al. as separate genera. Well, almost. In contradiction to the paper’s statement, Nicholson et al.’s Anolis is not monophyletic because A. argenteolus is placed as the sister-taxon to the Xiphosurus clade (which contains Chamaeleolis and the ricordii group), rather than occurring with other species placed into the restricted Anolis. This is an odd finding, contradicting both Nicholson et al. and the Alfoldi et al. genome paper analysis, with the implication that the transparent lower eyelids of A. argenteolus and its putative sister taxon A. lucius are not homologous, but I don’t buy it. Other than that, I didn’t find anything too exciting in this phylogeny, though further scrutiny (it’s enormous) may turn up interesting relationships I didn’t notice.
Other than this one exception, however, the Nicholson et al. eight fare well. Nonetheless, the authors of this paper do not follow the Nicholson et al. taxonomic suggestion of subdivision, stating: “since Anolis is monophyletic as previously defined, we retain that definition here…for continuity with the recent literature.”
Probably the most interesting finding concerns the closest relative to anoles, a topic of great uncertainty. This analysis strongly confirms that Polychrus is not the sister group to Anolis; rather, Polychrus appears related to the hoplocercids, which means that it’s dewlap must be convergent with the anole flasher. To whom, then, are anoles related? The answer appears to be the basiliscines (Corytophanidae in more modern parlance), the morphologically diverse and fascinating neotropical group containing not only basilisks, but also Corytophanes and the little-known Laemanctus.
Two last points: first, as noted above, there’s lots of missing data. Clearly, this is not the last word and, in particular, the question of the sister taxon to Anolis cries out for further study. Second, as the authors note, this paper will be of inestimable value in conducting comparative studies spanning the entire lizard radiation. To facilitate such, the authors have made available a Newick file containing the phylogeny (if you don’t know what this means, suffice to say that it’s a very helpful move that will make it easy to use this phylogeny in comparative studies).
Now, let’s get out and sequence the other 5000 species and finish the job!
[Editor’s Update, March 18, 2014]: I was mistaken in saying that the Pyron et al. tree found only one inconsistency with the Nicholson et al. genera. In addition to the exception noted above, Nicholson et al. place christophei in their Chamaelinorops clade, but Pyron et al. find it allying with species that Nicholson et al. put in Xiphosurus.
I’m told that in the old days, all kinds of critters would show up in fruit shipments from tropical regions, but now with pesticides and processing, it’s much rarer. The BBC reports the story of one such recent event:
The reptile, which was about 8ins (20cm) long, was found at Riverford Organic Farms, in Buckfastleigh.
Staff said it was the first lizard they had found since starting to import bananas from the Dominican Republic about a decade ago.
The anolis lizard, which feeds on insects, was sent to Paignton Zoo and is expected to be added to its collection.
Amanda Whittington, from the farm, said the animal had been stored in a container since it was found on Thursday.
She said: “A woman was packing bananas into our fruit boxes and out it popped. It gave her a bit of a shock.
“We then caught it and asked Paignton Zoo what to do.
“It then escaped into the customer services department, but we then managed to catch it again and fed it some crickets.”
‘Certainly a survivor’
She said the bananas took a couple of weeks to transport by boat from the Dominican Republic.
Reptile keeper Rod Keen said: “There are hundreds of species of anolis lizard, which are related to iguanas.
“It is certainly a survivor, as it’s come thousands of miles in various methods of transport and spent time in cool rooms,” a spokesperson added.
The reptile will spend a standard six month period in quarantine at the zoo, and will probably be released into one of the tropical houses.
My recently published paper in Herpetological Conservation and Biology about the effects of human land use on Anolis carolinensis (abstract below) came from an exciting season of field research. The summer of 2010 in Palmetto State Park in Gonzales, Texas was my first field research experience, where I took my first steps of many (little did I know) into the world of Anole biology. I worked under the supervision of Michele Johnson with an awesome lab group: Tara Whittle (our lab technician), Alisa Dill, Michelle Sparks, and Chelsea Stehle. Yes, I was the only male, and yes, that means I did get a tent all to myself. I took so many things from this experience, both scientific and not, that started my future as a field biologist.
We spent our days out in the hot Texas summer heat, catching, measuring, and observing our new friends, the green anoles. Each of us had our own research to work on that focused on various aspects of green anoles, and so we divided up our field time amongst our projects, helping each other collect data. We designated plots throughout the state park so we could compare the anoles in those plots. I studied the ways that human land use, such as clearing land for buildings, or constructing trails through natural habitat, impacts the lizards’ prey and the lizards themselves. While we did not find any clear trends showing that human disturbance impacts insects, which in turn affects the anoles, we were able to show that human-disturbed plots had higher insect biomass. This would seem beneficial to the anoles, who would theoretically have higher body condition (BMIs: SVL divided by mass) because of the greater amount of available food. However, we found that lizards (females in this case) in plots with greater levels of disturbance had lower BMIs.
The non-straightforward results from my study reflect the complexity of the relationship between humans and the environment; our impacts on the world do not always easily appear. I am taking what I have learned from this experience and am continuing to use anoles as a system to study human impacts on the environment at a local scale. This fall, I will attend the University of Rhode Island and study anoles with Jason Kolbe.
Abstract:
ANDREW C. BATTLES, TARA K.WHITTLE, CHELSEA M. STEHLE, AND MICHELE A. JOHNSON
Abstract.—Lizards frequently occur in disturbed habitats, yet the impacts of human activity on lizard biology remain understudied. Here, we examined the effects of land use on the body condition of Green Anole lizards (Anolisvcarolinensis) and the availability of their arthropod prey. Because human activity generally alters abiotic and biotic habitat features, we predicted that areas modified by humans would differ from areas with natural, intact vegetation in arthropod abundance and biomass. In addition, because biological communities in high use areas are often relatively homogenized, we predicted that higher human land use would result in lower prey diversity. Regardless of land use, we also predicted that areas with greater prey availability and diversity would support lizards with higher body condition. We studied anoles in six plots with varying levels of human modification in Palmetto State Park in Gonzales County, Texas. We quantified arthropod abundance, biomass, and diversity in each plot via transects and insect traps. We also determined lizard body condition using mass:length ratios and residuals, fat pad mass, and liver lipid content. We found that, although arthropod abundance did not differ across plots, arthropod biomass was higher in natural than in disturbed plots. Diversity indices showed that the plots varied in their arthropod community diversity, but not in relation to disturbance. Female (but not male) lizard body condition differed across plots, with body condition higher in natural plots than disturbed plots. Together, these results suggest that land use is associated with lizard body condition, but not through a direct relationship with prey availability.
The good news: Cabela’s is selling their fabled telescoping panfish poles for $10 off (or at least, that’s what their website says–we’ve seen ordering fulfillment issues in the past)
Periodically, AA has featured reports on finding three-legged lizards in nature (1,2). And here’s another one, briefly detained on a recent field trip to Abaco. Loss of her hindfoot doesn’t seem to be troubling her too much; heck, she’s even gravid!
Turns out that three-legged lizards pop up all the time. I’ve decided to put together a compilation of the little tricyclers. If you have any information on a three-legged lizard–a photo or more, such as measurements of mass, survival, or sprint performance–I’d love to know about it. Please contact me at jlosos@oeb.harvard.edu.
Be the first in your town have this on your cruiser.
How’s this for a nifty anole decal? A gift from AA contributor and photographer extraordinaire Joe Burgess, the window dressing is the handiwork of Floridian Gary Swenk, who has this to say about himself and his unusual trade: “I am a retired law enforcement officer now doing vinyl graphics from home. I attached a catalog that I use and I also can convert pics, images etc. to vector graphics for making the decals. Black and white or pics with good contrast work best (not all pics, images are able to convert but it is easy for me to test them). I have a lot of different colors available. They can be made in many sizes ( 3″ up to 11″ is a good size). I can customize a graphic with names etc., using numerous fonts. Price is based upon size and single colors would run $2 to $5 for the sizes mentioned plus actual shipping cost which would be minimal. My cell is 904-540-3879.” And his emai is customdecals4u@yahoo.com.
Did the lizards on this island survive Hurricane Sandy?
Long time AA readers will recall that every year, a team of researchers go to the Marsh Harbour, Abaco, Bahamas to study how curly-tailed lizards affect brown anoles and, in turn, how the presence of brown anoles affect the rest of the ecosystem on tiny islands. This research, initiated by Tom Schoener and Dave Spiller in the 1980s, has been long-lasting and has produced many interesting discoveries about anoles, ecology and evolution.
But in the last few years, the research has been bedeviled by hurricanes. In 1998 and then again in 2004, studies on the effects of curly-tails on brown anoles were terminated prematurely by hurricanes. We did learn a lot about how hurricanes affect ecosystems, including lizards, but it wasn’t so helpful with regard to understanding how brown anoles evolve in response to predation pressure. After waiting several years for the islands and lizard populations to recover, we re-initiated the experiment again in 2008. At the same time, we started a second experiment by introducing a single pair of lizards to each of seven islands, creating a replicated experiment on the effects of founder events on evolutionary adaptation.
Both experiments were moving along nicely when—what else?—another hurricane hit, Irene in 2011. As everyone recalls, Irene was a big one, and we feared the worst, but by good fortune, its effects were less than catastrophic because it hit at low tide—minimizing the extent of the storm surge—and from a direction that tended to minimize the storm surge on the particular islands we were studying. The result was that some—though not all—island populations were hit hard, but very few were demolished. In fact, I speculated that studying the effect of a population bottleneck on populations created by founder events might be particularly interesting, because some theories suggest that it takes multiple population crashes to lead to great evolutionary changes.
Hurricane Irene ripping its way through the Bahamas. Abaco is the island to the right of the arrow labelled “Freeport.”
So along comes 2012 and… another direct hit on our islands, this time by the infamous Hurricane Sandy. Although initially quite large, by the time Sandy hit Abaco, its wind speeds were less than Irene, giving us hope. But, on the other hand, Sandy slowed to a crawl, meaning that it remained over Abaco for a long time, not just at low tide, and also from a more threatening direction than Irene’s. All dangerous portents.
Photo by Jason Kolbe
Thus, with great trepidation, we returned to Abaco earlier this month, anxious to learn how our island buddies had fared. A trip to Abaco last December—admittedly, not the best anole time, even in the Bahamas—had indicated that a number of the lowest lying islands seemed lizardless. And our visit confirmed that finding. The seven islands in our founder effect study are all small and low-lying, and the lizard populations on five of them were wiped out (one of them had a female last December, but she’s apparently gone). One of the remaining islands contains but three anoles—a male and two females—and it will be interesting to observe the effect of this population bottleneck. That population—like all in this experiment—was founded by two individuals and quickly grew in size. Will it rebound again, and just as quickly?
Janson Jones 
