PERRY, G.*; GARLAND, T., JR.: Lizard home ranges revisited: traditional and phylogenetic perspectives

Home range (HR) is the area traversed during food gathering, mating, and other routine activities. Thus, it is an ecologically important indicator of the behavioral and resource requirements of an animal. We reevaluated the factors affecting estimates of HR area in lizards. We compiled a database of over 470 published sex X population data sets. After removal of incomplete sets, we analyzed data representing 103 populations from 58 species. Conventional nested analysis of covariance, which treats each data point as statistically independent, showed highly significant effects of all factors and covariates tested, including both biological (diet, habitat type, body size, sex) and methodological (calculation method, number of sightings) ones. Addition of basic phylogenetic information (major and minor clade) to the statistical model produced similar conclusions. HR did not significantly differ between members of Autarchoglossa and Iguania, but the differences among families, nested within these two major clades, were highly significant. To account for possible phylogenetic non-independence, we also analyzed the data with independent contrasts (Felsenstein, 1985, Am. Nat. 125:1-15; Garland, Midford, and Ives, 1999, Am. Zool. 39:374-388), and a phylogeny assembled from published studies. This analysis produced similar results: diet, habitat type, body size, and calculation method had significant effects for both sexes, but no differences were detected between Autarchoglossa and Iguania. The allometric slope for HR area was similar to that for the scaling of field metabolic rates of lizards (Nagy, Girard, and Brown, 1999, Annu. Rev. Nutr. 19:247-277). NSF IBN-9723758.