Meeting Abstract
Deserts are well known for among-year variation in climate and the strong effect of pulses of rainfall on community productivity. In the northern extreme of the Great Basin desert, three contrasting years (hot and dry, warm and wet, and intermediate conditions) provided a unique opportunity to compare the daily rate of feeding and body condition of lizards among those years. The hot and dry spring in one year was severe enough to cause lizards to skip reproduction in that year, whereas the unusually wet and warm (as opposed to wet and cool) provided the opportunity to compare presumably optimal conditions with not only the hot and dry year, but also with a year comprising average climate for that locality. Both sexes of the western whiptail lizard and the desert horned lizard performed similarly among years, but the feeding rate and body condition of both sexes of the long-nosed leopard lizard varied with productivity of prey. The food acquisition modes of these lizards and their prey types and prey availability are discussed in light of these contrasting physiomorphic responses.
