When You Can Not Get The Results You Expected, Use What You Can Get!

An adult Anolis sagrei male specimen from Santzepu, Sheishan District, Chiayi County, southwestern Taiwan.

Field research does not always go the way we plan. My research partners and I were reminded of that in 2004, when we tried to use a mark-and-recapture method to determine the population sizes of brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) in a small betelnut palm (Areca catecha L) plantation in Santzepu, Sheishan District, Chiayi County, southwestern Taiwan. We ended up with too low recapture rates for our estimates. Still all was not lost! Of the lizards we did recapture, we were able to calculate monthly growth rates and monthly growth percentages. The results indicated that at least some individuals experienced active growth throughout the year. Our results also supported the findings of Schoener and Schoener (1978) and Cox et al. (2009) that smaller individuals of both sexes grew faster than larger conspecifics of the same gender, and that males grew faster than females. We also determined that growth rates of both sexes decreased during the peak reproductive period, suggesting that available energy is directed primarily to reproduction and the associated to behavior, and that energy is only directed towards growth once the requirements for reproduction are met.

The experience from this study convinced me again that it is important to collect as much data as possible when conducting field studies – it is hard to predict where it may come in handy at a later stage.