MORAN, A.L.*; MANAHAN, D.T.; Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles: Energy Budgets of Marine Larvae: Why Don’t They Add Up? Larval energy budgets are an important tool for understanding the ecology, evolution and physiology of marine invertebrate life histories. For nonfeeding larvae or prefeeding planktotrophic stages, budgets are most […]

ARENDT, Jeff; Univ. of California, Riverside: The Proximate Determinates of Body Size in Spadefoot Tadpoles: cell size, cell number and functional consequences Body size is an important correlate in most areas of biology including predator-prey interactions, competition, allometry, and life-history. Despite being one of the most commonly measured traits in biology, we know remarkably little […]

HODGES, Wendy L; Univ. of California, Riverside: Testing the Cold-Climate Hypothesis: Evolution of Viviparity in Horned Lizards (Phrynosoma) Transitions from oviparity (egg laying) to viviparity (live bearing) have occurred in many vertebrate lineages including fishes, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. The cold-climate model for the evolution of viviparity in squamates has received broad support and predicts […]

LEONARD, J.L.; Univ. of California-Santa Cruz: Sex and the Balanced Portfolio The �cost of meiosis� problem is that for sex to be adaptive, sexually produced offspring must be, on average, either half as expensive to produce or twice as successful in terms of their future fitness. Applied to the problem of reproduction, Modern Portfolio Theory […]

SPANOVICH, S; NIEWIAROWSKI, PH*; LONDRAVILLE, RL; University of Akron: Seasonal Variation in Circulating Leptin in Fence Lizards, Sceloporus undulatus, From Two Populations We showed in a previous study that the hormone leptin, when injected into fence lizards, evoked the same short-term phenotypic responses as observed in laboratory mammals (changes in energy metabolism, thermoregulatory behavior, and […]

HERREL, A.*; VANHOOYDONCK, B.; IRSCHICK, D.J.; University of Antwerp, Belgium; University of Antwerp, Belgium; Tulane University, New Orleans: Ontogeny of head shape, bite performance and diet in the Jamaican lizard Anolis lineatopus As different life-history stages of a species potentially compete for the same prey, natural selection can be expected to give rise to intraspecific […]

BERKE, S. K.; MILLER, M.; WOODIN, S. A.; University of South Carolina; University of South Carolina; University of South Carolina: Modeling Behavior through Reproductive Value Historically, behavioral modeling has been largely limited to simulations and dynamic programming models, perhaps because it is easier to write �rules� for individual behavior than to write continuous equations describing […]

ELSTROTT, J.*; IRSCHICK, D. J.; Tulane University; Tulane University: Evolutionary correlations among morphology, habitat use, and clinging performance in Caribbean Anolis lizards A central issue in evolutionary biology concerns whether morphology, performance, and habitat use have co-evolved. We investigated evolutionary relationships among the size of the subdigital toepad, clinging ability, and perch height in 12 […]

GOMEZ-MESTRE, I.*; WARKENTIN, K.M.; Boston University; Boston University: Embryo response to risk varies among species of leaf-breeding treefrogs, genus Agalychnis Arboreal embryos of red-eyed treefrogs, Agalychnis callidryas, hatch prematurely in response to various egg-stage risks, including attack by egg-eating snakes and wasps, infection by pathogenic fungus, and submergence underwater (risk of drowning). Early hatching is […]

MINER, Benjamin G; Univ. of California, Davis: Effects of environmental variation on the evolution of phenotypic plasticity The ability of an organism to change its phenotype in response to environmental (i.e. phenotypic plasticity) is ubiquitous in nature. In many cases phenotypic plasticity is adaptive and allows individuals of a population to cope with environmental variation. […]