Meeting Abstract
Habitat management, by definition, alters an environment to achieve specific outcomes for conservation, preservation, or use of natural resources. Common management techniques include prescribed fire, timber harvest, or species removal; thus, each management protocol has a variety of negative or positive effects on constituent species. In some cases, habitat management techniques may benefit some species, while having negative consequences on non-target species. Long leaf pine and Florida scrub habitats in the Ocala National Forest (ONF) in central Florida undergo prescribed burning (long leaf) and clearcutting (scrub), thereby leading to substantially different microhabitats for small ectotherms such as lizards. As such, these habitats lead to certain physiological adaptations. The Florida Scrub Lizard (Sceloporus woodi) is endemic to peninsular Florida and resides in the managed long leaf and scrub habitats in the ONF. Lizards from each habitat are known to differ in key traits such as activity time, thermal environment, and predation rate. Therefore, in this study, we will examine variation in metabolic rate and immune response (swelling), in lizards from each habitat type to test if physiological adaptations are occurring among subpopulations.
