A highly resolved network reveals the role of terrestrial herbivory in structuring aboveground food webs.

Comparative studies suggest remarkable similarities among food webs across habitats, including systematic changes in their structure with diversity and complexity (scale-dependence). However, historic aboveground terrestrial food webs (ATFWs) have coarsely grouped plants and insects such that these webs are generally small, and herbivory is disproportionately under-represented compared to vertebrate predator-prey interactions. Furthermore, terrestrial herbivory is thought to be structured by unique processes compared to size-structured feeding in other systems.

Ecological drivers of ultraviolet colour evolution in snakes.

Ultraviolet (UV) colour patterns invisible to humans are widespread in nature. However, research bias favouring species with conspicuous colours under sexual selection can limit our assessment of other ecological drivers of UV colour, like interactions between predators and prey. Here we demonstrate widespread UV colouration across Western Hemisphere snakes and find stronger support for a predator defence function than for reproduction.

Plasticity of Gene Expression and Thermal Tolerance: Implications for Climate Change Vulnerability in a Tropical Forest Lizard.

AbstractTropical ectotherms are thought to be especially vulnerable to climate change because they have evolved in temporally stable thermal environments and therefore have decreased tolerance for thermal variability. Thus, they are expected to have narrow thermal tolerance ranges, live close to their upper thermal tolerance limits, and have decreased thermal acclimation capacity. Although models often predict that tropical forest ectotherms are especially vulnerable to rapid environmental shifts, these models rarely include the potential for plasticity of relevant traits.

A high-quality genome for the slender anole (Anolis apletophallus): an emerging model for field studies of tropical ecology and evolution.

The slender anole, Anolis apletophallus, is a small arboreal lizard of the rainforest understory of central and eastern Panama. This species has been the subject of numerous ecological and evolutionary studies over the past 60 years as a result of attributes that make it especially amenable to field and laboratory science. Slender anoles are highly abundant, short-lived (nearly 100% annual turnover), easy to manipulate in both the lab and field, and are ubiquitous in the forests surrounding the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, where researchers have access to high-quality laboratory facilities.

Sustained Drought, but Not Short-Term Warming, Alters the Gut Microbiomes of Wild Lizards.

As rising temperatures threaten biodiversity across the globe, tropical ectotherms are thought to be particularly vulnerable due to their narrow thermal tolerance ranges. Nevertheless, physiology-based models highlighting the vulnerability of tropical organisms rarely consider the contributions of their gut microbiota, even though microbiomes influence numerous host traits, including thermal tolerance. We combined field and lab experiments to understand the response of the slender anole lizard () gut microbiome to climatic shifts of various magnitude and duration.

Batch-Mask: Automated Image Segmentation for Organisms with Limbless or Non-Standard Body Forms.

Efficient comparisons of biological color patterns are critical for understanding the mechanisms by which organisms evolve in nature, including sexual selection, predator-prey interactions, and thermoregulation. However, limbless, elongate, or spiral-shaped organisms do not conform to the standard orientation and photographic techniques required for many automated analyses. Currently, large-scale color analysis of elongate animals requires time-consuming manual landmarking, which reduces their representation in coloration research despite their ecological importance.

Sex-Specific Population Differences in Resting Metabolism Are Associated with Intraspecific Variation in Sexual Size Dimorphism of Brown Anoles.

AbstractSexual size dimorphism can vary in direction and magnitude across populations, but the extent to which such intraspecific variation is associated with sex and population differences in underlying metabolic processes is unclear. We compared resting metabolic rates (RMRs) of brown anole lizards () from two island populations in the Bahamas (Eleuthera and Great Exuma) that differ in the magnitude of male-biased sexual size dimorphism. Whereas females from each population exhibit similar growth rates and body sizes, males from Great Exuma grow more quickly and attain larger body sizes than males from Eleuthera.

Genetic mechanisms and correlational selection structure trait variation in a coral snake mimic.

Covariation among traits shapes both phenotypic evolution and ecological interactions across space and time. However, rampant geographical variation in the strength and direction of such correlations can be particularly difficult to explain through generalized mechanisms. By integrating population genomics, surveys of natural history collections and spatially explicit analyses, we tested multiple drivers of trait correlations in a coral snake mimic that exhibits remarkable polymorphism in mimetic and non-mimetic colour traits.

Sex-specific microhabitat use is associated with sex-biased thermal physiology in lizards.

If fitness optima for a given trait differ between males and females in a population, sexual dimorphism may evolve. Sex-biased trait variation may affect patterns of habitat use, and if the microhabitats used by each sex have dissimilar microclimates, this can drive sex-specific selection on thermal physiology. Nevertheless, tests of differences between the sexes in thermal physiology are uncommon, and studies linking these differences to microhabitat use or behavior are even rarer.

Thermal ecology and physiology of an elongate and semi-fossorial arthropod, the bark centipede.

Organismal performance is strongly linked to temperature because of the fundamental thermal dependence of chemical reaction rates. However, the relationship between the environment and body temperature can be altered by morphology and ecology. In particular, body size and body shape can impact thermal inertia, as high surface area to volume ratios will possess low thermal mass.

Acclimatization in the physiological performance of an introduced ectotherm.

Phenotypic flexibility may facilitate range expansion by allowing organisms to maintain high levels of performance when introduced to novel environments. Phenotypic flexibility, such as reversible acclimatization, permits organisms to achieve high performance over a wide range of environmental conditions, without the costly allocation or acquisition tradeoffs associated with behavioral thermoregulation, which may expedite range expansion in introduced species. The northern curly-tailed lizard, , was introduced to the USA in the 1940s and is now established in southern Florida.

Thermal physiology and thermoregulatory behaviour exhibit low heritability despite genetic divergence between lizard populations.

Ectothermic species are particularly sensitive to changes in temperature and may adapt to changes in thermal environments through evolutionary shifts in thermal physiology or thermoregulatory behaviour. Nevertheless, the heritability of thermal traits, which sets a limit on evolutionary potential, remains largely unexplored. In this study, we captured brown anole lizards () from two populations that occur in contrasting thermal environments.

Condition dependence of shared traits differs between sympatric Anolis lizards.

In many species, sexually selected combat and display traits can confer dramatic fitness benefits to males by aiding in mate acquisition, so individuals maximally invest energy into their growth and maintenance. Such traits are deemed condition-dependent, as the energy that is available for investment depends on the health and condition of the individual. Condition dependence is present in a wide range of traits across many taxa, but the extent to which condition dependence varies among shared traits in closely related species is poorly understood.