Urbanization occurs at a global scale,imposing dramatic and abrupt environmental changes that lead to biodiversity loss.Yet,some animal species can handle these changes,and thrive in such artifcial environments.One po...Urbanization occurs at a global scale,imposing dramatic and abrupt environmental changes that lead to biodiversity loss.Yet,some animal species can handle these changes,and thrive in such artifcial environments.One possible explanation is that urban individuals are equipped with better cognitive abilities,but most studies have focused on birds and mammals and yielded varied results.Reptiles have received much less attention,despite some lizard species being common city dwellers.The Italian wall lizard,Podarcis siculus,and the common wall lizard,Podarcis muralis,are two successful lizards in anthropogenic habitats that thrive in urban locations.To test for differences in a cognitive skill between urban and semi-natural environments,we investigated inhibitory control through a detour task in syntopic populations of the two species,across 249 lizards that were tested in partially artifcial feld settings.Sophisticated inhibitory control is considered essential for higher degrees of cognitive fexibility and other higher-level cognitive abilities.In this task,we confronted lizards with a transparent barrier,separating them from a desired shelter area that they could only reach by controlling their impulse to go straight and instead detour the barrier.We found no differences between lizards in urban and semi-natural environments,nor between species,but females overall performed better than males.Moreover,48%of the lizards in our study did not perform a correct trial in any of the 5 trials,hinting at the diffculty of the task for these species.This study is among the frst to address lizard cognition,through their inhibitory control,as a potential explanation for success in cities and highlights one should be careful with assuming that urban animals generally have enhanced cognitive performance,as it might be taxa,task,or condition dependent.展开更多
Femoral glands of male lizards produce waxy secretions that are involved in inter- and intraspecific chemical communication. The main components of these secretions are proteins and lipids, the latter having been exte...Femoral glands of male lizards produce waxy secretions that are involved in inter- and intraspecific chemical communication. The main components of these secretions are proteins and lipids, the latter having been extensively studied and already associated to male quality. On the opposite, the composition and role of proteins are nearly unknown, the only available information coming from few studies on iguanids. These studies got the conclusion that proteins might have a communicative function, notably they could signal individual identity. A generalization of these findings requires the extension of protein analysis to other lizard families, and the primary detection of some patterns of individual variability. Using the common wall lizard Podarcis muralis as a model species, the protein fraction of the femoral pore secretions was investigated to provide the first characterization of this component in a lacertid lizard and to explore its source of variability, as a first step to support the hypothesized communicative role. Samples of proteins from femoral secretions were collected from 6 Italian populations and subjected to 1-dimensional electrophoresis. The binary vector of the band presence/absence was used to define the individual profiles. Protein fraction is found to have a structured pattern, with both an individual and a population component. Although the former supports the potential communicative role of proteins, the latter offers a double interpretation, phylogenetic or environmental, even though the phylogenetic effect seems more likely given the climatic resemblance of the considered sites. Further studies are necessary to shed light on both these issues.展开更多
Color polymorphisms have become a major topic in evolutionary biology and substantial efforts have been devoted to the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for originating such colorful systems.Within-morph con...Color polymorphisms have become a major topic in evolutionary biology and substantial efforts have been devoted to the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for originating such colorful systems.Within-morph continuous variation,on the other hand,has been neglected in most of the studies.Here,we combine spectrophotometric/visual modeling and genetic data to study the mechanisms promoting continuous variation within categorical color morphs of Podarcis muralis.Our results suggest that intra-morph variability in the pterin-based orange morph is greater compared to white and yellow morphs.We also show that continuous variation within the orange morph is partially discriminable by conspecifics.Genotyping results indicate that allelic variants at the BCO2 locus(responsible for deposition of yellow carotenoids)contribute to generate continuous variation in orange individuals.However,other intrinsic and/or extrinsic mechanisms,such as body size,might be involved,opening a new avenue for future research on the drivers of continuous variation within-morphs.展开更多
基金This study was funded by a“Bielefeld Young Researchers'Fund"grant awarded by Bielefeld University(Germany)to I.D.M.under the code BYRF2021-DamasMoreira.
文摘Urbanization occurs at a global scale,imposing dramatic and abrupt environmental changes that lead to biodiversity loss.Yet,some animal species can handle these changes,and thrive in such artifcial environments.One possible explanation is that urban individuals are equipped with better cognitive abilities,but most studies have focused on birds and mammals and yielded varied results.Reptiles have received much less attention,despite some lizard species being common city dwellers.The Italian wall lizard,Podarcis siculus,and the common wall lizard,Podarcis muralis,are two successful lizards in anthropogenic habitats that thrive in urban locations.To test for differences in a cognitive skill between urban and semi-natural environments,we investigated inhibitory control through a detour task in syntopic populations of the two species,across 249 lizards that were tested in partially artifcial feld settings.Sophisticated inhibitory control is considered essential for higher degrees of cognitive fexibility and other higher-level cognitive abilities.In this task,we confronted lizards with a transparent barrier,separating them from a desired shelter area that they could only reach by controlling their impulse to go straight and instead detour the barrier.We found no differences between lizards in urban and semi-natural environments,nor between species,but females overall performed better than males.Moreover,48%of the lizards in our study did not perform a correct trial in any of the 5 trials,hinting at the diffculty of the task for these species.This study is among the frst to address lizard cognition,through their inhibitory control,as a potential explanation for success in cities and highlights one should be careful with assuming that urban animals generally have enhanced cognitive performance,as it might be taxa,task,or condition dependent.
文摘Femoral glands of male lizards produce waxy secretions that are involved in inter- and intraspecific chemical communication. The main components of these secretions are proteins and lipids, the latter having been extensively studied and already associated to male quality. On the opposite, the composition and role of proteins are nearly unknown, the only available information coming from few studies on iguanids. These studies got the conclusion that proteins might have a communicative function, notably they could signal individual identity. A generalization of these findings requires the extension of protein analysis to other lizard families, and the primary detection of some patterns of individual variability. Using the common wall lizard Podarcis muralis as a model species, the protein fraction of the femoral pore secretions was investigated to provide the first characterization of this component in a lacertid lizard and to explore its source of variability, as a first step to support the hypothesized communicative role. Samples of proteins from femoral secretions were collected from 6 Italian populations and subjected to 1-dimensional electrophoresis. The binary vector of the band presence/absence was used to define the individual profiles. Protein fraction is found to have a structured pattern, with both an individual and a population component. Although the former supports the potential communicative role of proteins, the latter offers a double interpretation, phylogenetic or environmental, even though the phylogenetic effect seems more likely given the climatic resemblance of the considered sites. Further studies are necessary to shed light on both these issues.
基金supported by post-doctoral grants Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación,IJC2018-035319-I(from the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia,Inovación y Universidades)SFRH/BPD/94582/2013 by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia under the Programa Operacional Potencial Humano-Quadro de Referência Estratégico Nacional,funds from the European Social Fund and Portuguese Ministério da Educação e Ciência+3 种基金P.Andrade was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia(FCT)through a research contract in the scope of project PTDC/BIA-EVL/28621/2017P.Aguilar was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia(FCT)through a technician contract in the scope of project PTDC/BIA-EVL/30288/2017-NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-30288funded by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia through the FCT project PTDC/BIA-EVL/30288/2017-NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-30288by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through the project PID2019-104721GB-I00.
文摘Color polymorphisms have become a major topic in evolutionary biology and substantial efforts have been devoted to the understanding of the mechanisms responsible for originating such colorful systems.Within-morph continuous variation,on the other hand,has been neglected in most of the studies.Here,we combine spectrophotometric/visual modeling and genetic data to study the mechanisms promoting continuous variation within categorical color morphs of Podarcis muralis.Our results suggest that intra-morph variability in the pterin-based orange morph is greater compared to white and yellow morphs.We also show that continuous variation within the orange morph is partially discriminable by conspecifics.Genotyping results indicate that allelic variants at the BCO2 locus(responsible for deposition of yellow carotenoids)contribute to generate continuous variation in orange individuals.However,other intrinsic and/or extrinsic mechanisms,such as body size,might be involved,opening a new avenue for future research on the drivers of continuous variation within-morphs.
