Meeting Abstract
Understanding the effects of human-induced environmental change on animal populations is currently the focus of many ecological and evolutionary studies. For example, urbanization is associated with altered abiotic and biotic conditions in cities around the world and these changes can influence key morphological traits. For the brown anole (Anolis sagrei), previous work in southeast Florida has shown that individuals from urban environments are consistently larger (i.e. snout-vent length) and in better body condition (i.e. mass/length) compared to conspecifics from natural habitats. Such variation in body size can have important consequences for the competitive ability, diet, and habitat use of these lizards. However, determining the factors responsible for body size variation between urban and natural populations, as well as among urban populations remains unresolved. To address this, we compared the body size of brown anoles from populations across a gradient of urbanization including natural forest environments. From each of these populations, we quantified factors that may contribute to body size variation such as body temperature, availability of solar radiation, food availability and diversity, conspecific density, and predator abundance. Our results confirm that urban lizards are larger and in better condition than their natural forest conspecifics, but the factors contributing to body size variation across these environments are complex and may include predator and conspecific abundances. Urban areas are predicted to spread and intensify over the next 50 years; therefore, it is critical to identify the features of urban areas with the greatest impact on animal communities so as to inform managers and mitigate future declines in biodiversity.
