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I was communicating recently with an eminent Gondwanan herpetologist, one who has published far and wide on many issues pertaining to many species. I remarked that it was time that he/she reached the pinnacle and worked on anoles. I received this response:

“To my mind, an anole is a little like a bicycle with training wheels – quite useful for youngsters to practice on and develop their skills. But just a pale shadow of the subtlety and sophistication of real lizards.  They just make it too easy to get lots of papers in good journals, and discover neat things.  Where’s the challenge?”

In contrast to their ubiquity at the evolution meetings [1,2], anoles are barely in attendance at the enormous Ecological Society of America meetings. Last year there were but three (including the famous “Kitty Cam” talk), and this year the dearth is worse, with but a single talk this week in Minneapolis. So, here it is, by Rich Glor and part of the symposium on “Coexistence of Closest Relatives: Synthesis of Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives”:

Patterns of Anolis lizard coexistence across a complex island landscape

Thursday, August 8, 2013: 3:40 PM

M100EF, Minneapolis Convention Center

Richard E. Glor , Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY

Background/Question/Methods

In species rich adaptive radiations, complex patterns of species coexistence result from speciation and natural selection acting over evolutionary time. In Anolis lizards, similar communities of 4-6 arboreal microhabitat specialists that partition available perches by size and height have evolved independently on each of the four largest Caribbean islands. These well-studied communities of anole ‘ecomorphs,’ however, account for only a fraction of anole species diversity. Most anole diversification has occurred subsequent to microhabitat specialization, resulting in complexes of closely-related species that belong to the same ecomorph but appear to be allopatrically or parapatrically distributed in different macrohabitats. We use integrative analyses that combine thousands of anole species occurrence records from public biodiversity databases, GIS environmental data, molecular phylogenetic and population genetic data, and data on phenotypic variation to test three predictions about anole species co-occurrence across the island of Hispaniola: (1) local communities tend to be comprised of microhabitat specialists that evolve relatively early in anole radiations, (2) closely-related or incipient species tend to be allopatrically or parapatrically distributed in distinct macrohabitats, and (3) habitat filtering in extreme habitats leads to communities in which species that are more closely related to one another than expected by chance.

Results/Conclusions

Our analyses support the prediction that local communities tend to be comprised of phenotypically distinct microhabitat specialists that evolved early in anole radiations and are relatively distantly related. Our analyses also support the prediction that closely-related species tend to be allopatrically or parapatrically distributed in distinct macrohabitats. This result, together with a growing body of molecular population genetic data, suggests that both geographic and ecological processes play an important role in recent anole speciation events, and dictate patterns of co-occurrence in closely related anole species. Finally, we find preliminary support for the importance of habitat filtering by recovering evidence for a latitudinal gradient in the phylogenetic composition of local communities whereby communities at the highest altitudes tend to include more closely-related species than communities at lower altitudes. This pattern is particularly evident in the Cordillera Central, where communities of closely related and ecologically unusual species tend to occur at the highest altitudes.

Several years ago I reviewed some lighting options for people interested in hunting anoles at night (Who wouldn’t? Throw that noose away!). At the time I recommended several readily available lights ranging from 300 to 700 lumens, $60 to $500 respectively. Needless to say, most anole enthusiasts were likely priced out of the brightest lights. However, I recently found an option affordable to even our dedicated summer field assistants. A relatively new company to the US, Magicshine, advertises an 1100 lumen light for only $90, the MJ-808U.

Maginshine MJ 808U

Now the first thing we should all do is assume that this is too good to be true. In just a few years our discussion has gone from $500 to $90 for a supposedly superior light. Come on! Online reviews of Magicshine’s products are generally favorable, but mixed. Reviews on mountain bike forums comment on the relatively poor construction and historically bad batteries. Several reviewers have also commented on overheating problems for riders not peddling their hardest.The best part of Magicshine is by far their price. But the last I checked we rarely look for anoles on bikes at night so we will need to take all of this in with some hesitation.

So what about herping? Time will ultimately tell how these lights hold up to our uses. I received my light in the mail earlier this week and have used it twice. To keep my hands free I also purchased the accessory head strap for about $8. I also need to purchase the extension cable as the attached cable between the battery and light is too short to reach my backpack from my head. First impressions, the light is retinal burning bright. I have absolutely no complaints there. I will warn you now, however, that the light gets hot, but has yet to overheat for me. I haven’t fully run down the battery yet either, but it has lasted for over 90 minutes of burn time so far. In summary, my first impressions are as the online reviews suggests, there are both pros and cons to this product, but for $90 why not give it a try. I am cautiously optimistic.

Has anyone else discovered this light yet? If so, please share your reviews with the community.

The Cover of Anolis Newsletter III, in which Ernest Williams revealed the POUM

Here at AA, we’ve often discussed Ernest Williams’ Principle of Unsympathetic Magic [1,2], which states that any hypothesis formulated in the field will immediately be disproven by the next observation. Janson Jones has recently uncovered its corollary, the Kakakairos of the Unprepared, which proclaims that whenever one goes into the field without a piece of equipment that one normally has, a situation will arise in which that equipment is needed. Or, more generally, whatever one is unprepaped for will happen. Janson explains it much better at Dust Tracks on the Web. All I can say is, it happens to me all the time.

Years ago I heard reports that Anolis cholocyanus had established a small population in  Dade County. Does anyone know if this population is still viable? I am starting a new project and it would be quite beneficial to examine a few living specimens before investing in a full trip to the Dominican Republic. If anyone has any information about the status of this introduced species I would be extremely grateful to learn more.

Have a good weekend!

I am a retired businessman who is also an avocational herpetologist. I am currently disposing of a good portion of my library including many papers on Anolis. All at very reasonable prices if I do say so myself. If you would like to be on my mailing lists (e-mails weekly containing around fifty titles) you can e-mail me at tsinclair2@comcast.net

Greetings! I’m writing with a request for all the photographically-inclined readers of Anole Annals. I’m in the process of finishing up a manuscript looking at the ecology and morphology of four species of Central American aquatic anoles – Anolis aquaticus, A. lionotus, A. oxylophus, and A. poecilopus. I would very much like to include a figure showing a good picture of each of these species. Sadly, my photographing skills are quite poor and I do not have any suitable images to include in this paper. I think the readers of this paper would be well-served to have a good image of each of the species examined and I would really like to include some pictures. Do any of you readers have an image or two of any of these species that you would care to share with me? You would, of course, be credited as the author of the photograph, and it would be published in a scientific study. If so, then please share your images with me at mmunoz@oeb.harvard.edu. Thank you!

Quite a line-up! This August in San Juan. Schedule below, and details on their website, as are the abstracts:

DAY I:  August 1, 2013

8:30 Ray Huey        Opening remarks

9:00 Ariel Lugo      Climate change or land cover change? Which is driving some lizards to the lowlands?

9:30 Jennifer Sunday   Global patterns of thermal tolerance and range limits in ectotherms

10:00 Barry Sinervo   On the risk of extinction of tropical ectotherms: Are they buffered against climate?

10:30 Coffee Break

11:00 Elvira Cuevas   Update of climate change in the Caribbean, and projections on soil nutrient cycling and interactions

11:30 Omar Gutierrez    Significant diurnal and seasonal variation in soil CO2 efflux is positively related to temperature in a moist subtropical forest in Puerto Rico

12:00 Lauren Buckley   Thermal specialization of ecotherms on tropical mountains

12:30 Michael Kearney   The thermodynamic niches of tropical ectotherms

1:00 Lunch Break

2:30 Mike Kaspari    Life in the boundary zone–the thermal ecology of small cursorial insects

3:00 Patricia Burrowes     Climate change efects on Caribbean seasonality and its implications on an ectotherm host-pathogen dynamics

3:30 Carlos Navas    Vulnerability of anuran amphibians to climate change: inferring the impact of water availability and temperature

4:00 Ana C. Carnaval   Integrating data sets to validate models of biological response to former climate change in the Brazilian Atlantic forest

4:30 Coffee Break

5:00 Mridul Thomas   The effects of ocean warming on marine phytoplankton diversity

5:30 Brad Lister     Long-term declines in arthropod abundance restructure a rainforest food web

DAY II: August 2, 2013

8:30 Martha M. Muñoz   Evolutionary stasis and lability in thermal physiology in a group of tropical lizards

9:00 Luisa Otero     Effects of recent climate warming on the reproductive phenology of Puerto Rican Anolis lizards

9:30 Alexander Gunderson   Behavioral responses to thermal variation: implications for predicting the biological impacts of climate change

10:00 Michael L. Logan Population level differences in thermal ecology suggest resilience to warming among Honduran Anolis lizards

10:30 Ignacio de la Riva    Thermal ecology of Bolivian lizards of the genus Liolaemus: Will climate warming drive them to extinction?

11:00 Mat Vickers     Sunshine, on a cloudy day

11:30 Michael Angilletta    Symposium highlights

12:00 Leave for Field Trip to El Verde

Developing bark anole embryo. Photo by Catherine May.

A while back, Anthony Geneva offered excess A. distichus eggs from their breeding colonies to any researchers would could use them. Some were sent to Kenro Kusumi’s lab at Arizona State, and Catherine May has now published some cool images of embryos at different ages (1-7 days old and 14+ days old).

Liolaemus tenuis, if I’m not mistaken. Photo by Felipe Rabanal.

South American fence lizard lookalikes Liolaemus keep on racking up the species numbers as new taxa are described willy-nilly. Over at Tetzoo, Darren Naish has written a nice post entitled “The enormous lioaemine radiation: paradoxical herbivory, viviparity, evolutionary cul-de-sacs and the impending mass extinction.” It’s a very nice overview of the different aspects of diversity of this clade, including summary of an interesting recent paper by Pincheira-Donoso and colleagues, and includes the chilling statement: “some herpetologists think that the Liolaemus radiation will eventually exceed the Anolis (sensu lato!) one in terms of number of species.”