Meeting Abstract
The spread of urban development has dramatically altered local habitats, modifying community relationships, abiotic factors, and structural features. Animal populations living in these areas must either perish, emigrate, or find ways to adjust to a suite of new selective pressures. Those that successfully colonize the urban environment may make behavioural, physiological, and/or morphological adjustments that are either heritable or a result of phenotypic plasticity. We tested for effects of urbanization on behaviour and morphology across an urban-wild gradient in the western fence lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis) in two California counties, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. To compare college campuses in both counties with nearby undeveloped (“wild”) locations, we conducted field trials that allowed us to characterize behavioural responses to acute capture stress, predator simulation, and release in adult lizards. We also collected head and limb measurements. We found several notable differences between campus and wild lizard behaviour, with campus lizards more frequently employing a strategy of tonic immobility. Furthermore, campus and wild females differed significantly in hindlimb length. We hypothesize that these differences may be influenced by a variety of novel ecological challenges, including increased anthropogenic activity, altered predatory regimes, and altered habitat structure.
