Meeting Abstract
Researchers have documented within-population color morphs and found such color variation is associated with behavioral differences for a growing number of vertebrate species. Few throat morphs have been described for Sceloporus lizards, a genus for which we have a rich body of ecological and evolutionary research. Here we describe throat color variation in male S. parvus from Queretaro in central Mexico in late May and early June, and we assess whether other phenotypic traits covary with throat color. Males from two sites less than 5 km distant and 500 m different in elevation differed in morphology, including SVL-mass relationships, throat morph frequency, tail breakage status and mite abundance, and some traits differed between morphs. Overall SVL for the adult males we sampled ranged between 45 to 53 for each morph, suggesting throat colors were not due to simple ontogenetic variation. Focal male behavior in staged territorial intrusions at one site did not differ by morph, including broadcast displays (headbobs), aggressive display (headbob with dorsolateral flattening and static dorsolateral flattened postures) and chemosensory behaviors, although the Yellow-Blue throat morph (n=9 trials) tended to display more headbobs than the Blue-White throat morph (n= 5 trials). The higher elevation site had more human-associated disturbance in addition to different habitat structure and both differences could contribute to site-specific differences in the frequencies of the color morphs we captured.
