Category: All Posts Page 152 of 154

Sum, sum, summertime, and Anole Annals readers of all stripes are out there, finding and studying anoles. Why not tell us what you’re seeing and doing? Observations, anecdotes, photographs, descriptions of research projects–the anole world needs to know! Or comment on a new paper, or an old one that made an impression. Or any other aspect of anoliana that comes to mind. Anole Annals welcomes posts on all matters anoline.

In it’s brief existence, AA has already published posts by 21 authors, and many more have commented. Why don’t you join the team? Information on how to post is available here.

p.s. Bonus points to anyone who can name the species above.

p.p.s. Thanks to Melissa Woolley for constructing the image above.

The Brodie Lab at the University of Virginia has developed a manual for breeding and raising anoles in lab colonies, entitled “Anolis Colony Care: A manual developed for the Brodie laboratory at University of Virginia.”

With the genome of green anole available for download, anole researchers are apt to face a dilemma related to both experimental design and the taste and judgment of science consumers. My colleagues and I recently published an article in Genome Biology and Evolution in which the anole genome was downloaded for analyses. Spearheaded by bioinformatics guru Charles Chapus, our experiments were conducted in silico. Through conversations with friends and colleagues, we intuited that we might face resistance to our methods because, although our hypotheses and analyses were novel, our raw data were not. Fortunately, this concern, held by some, did not postpone publication of our work, but it did raise an interesting point for discussion. Where is genomic research going, in relation to generation and/or analysis of sequence data? From the perspective of experimental design, the decision to generate new sequence depends on the research question. For population genetics studies, for example, novel sequence generation is efficacious but for whole genome comparisons, why repeat what is freely available for download?

Have you published work based on pre-existing data? How will you decide whether to amplify or download anole sequences for analyses?

The University of California Museum of Paleontology has a wonderful website on evolution education, including a number of classroom exercises. One of these focuses on using phylogeny to understand the evolution of the Greater Antillean ecomorphs. 

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I was wondering if anyone has some good information, published or otherwise, on the normal values found within a blood sample for an anolis species?  We have been doing some sampling within our collection and are looking for something with which to compare our results.  We have Chamaeleolis porcus, barbatus, and chamaeleonides, as well as Anolis ricordi and smallwoodi.  The blood samples that we have taken are all from our porcus.  The only values that our vets currently have to compare to are those from a veiled chameleon, and being an old world species, I don’t know how well that translates to Anolis.  The calcium phosphorus ratio looks pretty close to normal, but the calcium level is almost three times as high as we expected.  Is this possibly normal for a lizard that is a snail specialist?  Any other information that you could give me would also be much appreciated. 

Thank you for any help,

Will

The long awaited paper describing the genome sequencing of Anolis carolinensis was submitted for publication on Thursday. Containing seven figures and with 50 authors, the paper is an epic step forward in our understanding of anole genetics. Stay posted for updates as the story develops.

From the back cover: “Anolis lizards have been used in the development and testing of fundamental theories in ecology and evolution, and they have served as important models in behavioral ecology.” The cover photo is credited to Dan Warner.