Meeting Abstract

SICB+    Lead exposure in the brown anole (Anolis sagrei) in New Orleans, Louisiana Blanchette, A*; Gopal, A; Finkelstein, ME; Karubian, J; Gunderson, AR; Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV; University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA; Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; Tulane University, New Orleans, LA ablanchette@tulane.edu

Urban areas have quickly become a major ecosystem around the world, creating pressure to understand how urbanization effects the evolution and ecology of life. Lead (Pb) is a highly toxic heavy metal that is pervasive, but patchy, in urban environments because of its historical use in gasoline and paint and continued use in manufacturing. The devastating developmental, cognitive, and physiological effects of urban lead on humans have been well documented, but urban wildlife may also be susceptible to sub-lethal lead poisoning because of consistent exposure to contaminated soil, water, and food. Given its toxicity and environmental presence, there is a pressing need to deepen our understanding of lead ingestion at the intersections of wildlife biology and urbanization. The purpose of this study was to evaluate lead exposure and begin to examine the effects of lead ingestion in a common urban lizard, the brown anole (Anolis sagrei) in New Orleans, LA, which has well-documented variation in lead contamination across the city. We collected blood samples from adult male brown anoles from neighborhoods with both high and low levels of lead contamination (N=10/neighborhood). Anoles from the high lead neighborhood had, on average, 16x higher blood-lead levels (mean = 975.14±761.34 ug/dL) than those from the low lead neighborhood (mean = 61.42±86.80 ug/dL, t = -7.60, t-test; p < 0.001), and greatly exceeded the toxicity thresholds established for other vertebrates. To test for adverse effects of this increased lead exposure, we conducted both cognition and locomotor performance assays, comparing male and female anoles collected from high and low lead neighborhoods. These studies are important to help reveal the scope of urbanization impacts on wildlife.