Meeting Abstract
The adhesive toes of geckos and some other lizards have the remarkable capability to generate strong adhesion and friction on rough and smooth surfaces, allowing these animals to move through their environments unlike many other animals. The adhesive toe pads of lizards are extremely diverse, nearly as diverse as the habitats these species live in. Pad bearing lizards can be found living in rocky, arboreal, and terrestrial microhabitats in arid, temperate, and topical environments. How the adhesive toe pads of these species may be adapted to their particular microhabitats is an open question. The extensive work on pad bearing Caribbean and South American anole lizards have highlighted some adaptive patterns correlating toe pad morphology with habitat use, as well as how microhabitat adaptation can facilitate habitat partitioning and ecomorphological diversification. We investigated habitat partitioning in relation to perch texture. Perch texture remains a greatly understudied area with expected mechanical interactions with toe pad performance. Conducting fieldwork in Hawai’i, we quantified the texture of perches used by three invasive arboreal diurnal lizards species to investigate if perch texture is acting as an axis of habitat partitioning.
