Meeting Abstract
Invasive species have a variety of impacts on our natural world, ranging from habitat destruction and species displacement to single population evolutionary shifts. On occasions where the invasive species is closely related to the native species, even social behavior can be impacted and disrupted. In our study, we looked at the effect of invasion on a population’s social network; specifically, hierarchy. Current studies on brown anoles (Anolis sagrei) note their aggressiveness and ability to quickly displace green anole (A. carolinensis) populations, leading us to believe they might also be more socially dominant. Utilizing large, outdoor enclosures in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, we housed two captive populations of green anoles and recorded their behavior for 10 days. We then introduced brown anoles to one of the enclosures, mimicking an “invasion”, and continued to monitor the green anole behavior for another 10 days. The other enclosure served as our control, where we introduced more green anoles to create a mock “invasion”. Looking at post-invasion interaction behaviors, we found no evidence that introduced brown anoles are more socially dominant than introduced green anoles. In fact, during almost all “invasions” both species maintained an average level of social interactions, with brown anoles displaying slightly more than the introduced green anoles. These results indicate that brown anoles, despite quickly being able to displace green anole populations upon invasion, do not greatly change the social networks through more dominance.
