Meeting Abstract
Sceloporus occidentalis, the western fence lizard, is considered a territorial lizard because it has the following traits or behaviors: it has site fidelity, it defends that site, and it holds a near exclusive use of that site. However, physical combat, which may be used to defend their site, carries significant risks. As a result, species often use displays to establish social dominance without physical confrontation, such as push-up behavior that displays blue ventral patches. We proposed that male S. occidentalis lizards with larger ventral blue patches would be in closer proximity to more females, be more distant from other, rival males, and possibly have stronger bite forces than males with smaller blue patches. We collected lizard locations from Ventura County, California with a Trimble GeoXH GPS unit accurate to 10 cm. We collected data for 16 males and 12 females from June-August 2014 and March-August 2015. We also captured some of the lizards and brought them to the lab to measure sprint speed, morphology, bite force, and to photograph the ventral patches. We also recorded spectral properties of each ventral patch with a spectrometer. From these data, we address the role of ventral patch size in both an intra- and intersexual context.
