Meeting Abstract

78.2  Monday, Jan. 6 10:30  A Few Meters Matter: Micro-Landscape Variation in Reproduction and Reproductive Cycling a Tropical Lizard OTERO, L.M.; HUEY, R.B.*; GORMAN, G.C; University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras; University of Washington, Seattle; Paso Pacifico, Ventura, California hueyrb@uw.edu

Reproductive cycles and intensity in lizards often vary intraspecifically over geographic scales, in part driven by geographic variation in influential environmental factors such as temperature, rainfall, and photoperiod. Some species, however, occupy multiple habitats at single localities. Whether reproductive cycles vary on a micro-landscape scale has been largely unstudied. In lowland Puerto Rico, the lizard Anolis cristatellus often occupies both open (sunny, warm) and deeply forested (shady, relatively cooler) habitats that may be only meters apart. In open habitats this lizard thermoregulates carefully and achieves high and stable body temperatures (weather and season permitting); but in adjacent forests it is a thermoconformer and has lower and more variable body temperatures. We studied the annual cycles of female reproduction in open vs. forest habitats at two localities. Reproductive intensity and phenology differed strikingly between habitats: females in open habitats were more likely to be reproductive throughout the year — especially in winter — than were females in adjacent forests. In fact, these between-habitat differences are similar in magnitude to those for populations separated by hundreds of meters in elevation. Environmental differences matter, even on a micro-landscape scale. Reproduction in Anolis cristatellus is extremely sensitive to thermal micro-environments.