Meeting Abstract

113-6   14:30 - 14:45  Dune you think I could join you? Investigating how plasticity and behavior affect colonization success in White Sands lizards Mauro, AM*; Rosenblum, EB; University of California, Berkeley; University of California, Berkeley amauro@berkeley.edu

Investigating populations’ ability to colonize new environments can offer insight into the ecological and evolutionary factors that influence adaptation to new environments. For instance, contrasting examples of successful colonizations and failed colonizations can help us better understand the roles plasticity and priority effects play in determining initial population establishment which is vital to future adaptive evolution. With this perspective in mind, we have begun to investigate why some species of lizards have been able to colonize the White Sands (a large white dune-field) from the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert whereas most lizards from the regional species pool have been unable to colonize the White Sands. Here we contrast two ecologically similar species: a successful White Sands colonizer, Holbrookia maculata, and an unsuccessful colonizer, Uta stansburiana, in terms of their behavior in different environments and the plasticity of their coloration. Specifically, we had lizards of both species compete over a basking source in a White Sands environment and in a desert environment and found that H. maculata has a “home-field” advantage over U. stansburiana in the White Sands. This advantage could make contemporary colonization attempts into the White Sands by U. stansburiana challenging (a priority effect). Lastly, we investigated potential correlations between behavior and color plasticity (across the desert and White Sands environments) as previous studies have shown that becoming blanched is vital to colonizing the White Sands and that there is a physiological link between aggression and color in many vertebrates. Ultimately, the current study is part of a larger project in which we will use this system to systematically explore many of the factors that can influence colonization and subsequent adaptation.