Meeting Abstract
Morphological changes can occur rapidly in populations when exposed to new or more intense selective pressures. One instance of acute exposure is the introduction of non-native species into new habitats. While the addition of a non-native species can have profound effects on natives, there can also be large impacts on the invader itself. The Mediterranean House Gecko, Hemidactylus turcicus, is native to Southern Europe and Northern Africa and has spread throughout the world as resilient invader. Throughout its evolutionary history, it naturally inhabited rock faces and cracks but now also thrives on human-made walls and other structures. Since these structures are often made of different materials and the gecko relies on lamellar toepads and claws to adhere to vertical structures, we compared toepad area and claw length among four isolated populations with different substrate properties. In the coming year, we hope to expand the dataset and include population-level analyses to better understand this phenomenon in a broader context.
