We describe the existence of an extraordinary fruit consumption of a single plant species, the juniper, Juniperus phoenicea, by the Balearic lizard, P. lilfordi. In addition, for the first time in Lacertidae, we describe the existence of scat piling in the population of these lizards inhabiting Cabrera Island (Balearic Islands, Spain). Scat piling was detected in an isolated location with hundreds of scats deposited by several individuals at a particular place. Leer más.
Host-gut microbiota interactions are complex and can have a profound impact on the ecology and evolution of both counterparts. Several host traits such as taxonomy, diet and social behavior, and external factors such as prey availability and local environment are known to influence the composition and diversity of the gut microbiota. In this study, we investigated the influence of taxonomy, sex, host size, locality/habitat on gut microbiota diversity in five lizard species from two different sites in Portugal. Leer más.
The results of the metabarcoding analyses based on faecal samples were in accordance with an omnivorous ecology, suggesting that specific microbiota communities in the insular populations might be correlated with differences in host ecology and phylogeny. These results are a valuable contribution to the current understanding of the evolution of Columbretes’ lizards and provide important information for conservation management. Leer más.
To obtain a first exploratory overview of the thermophysiology of lizards in this range of environments, we experimentally inferred preferred temperature (Tpref) and instant evaporative water loss (IWL). For this purpose we collected 63 individual lizards at five bioclimatically highly diverse sites on the island, including the peak of Teide Mountain (3,560 m above sea level) and coastal locations. Leer más.
Multiple Quaternary glacial refugia in the Iberian Peninsula, commonly known as “refugia within refugia”, allowed diverging populations to come into contact and admix, potentially boosting substantial mito-nuclear discordances. In this study, we employ a comprehensive set of mitochondrial and nuclear markers to shed light onto the drivers of geographical differentiation in Iberian high mountain populations of the midwife toads Alytes obstetricans and A. almogavarii from the Pyrenees, Picos de Europa and Guadarrama Mountains. Leer más.
