In the second of four urban anole presentations at Evolution, Emmanuel D’Agostino does a great job summarizing new research by LITC contributor Chris Thawley. Chris’ post-doc research has really delved into the night-light niche and ALAN, a topic that is no stranger to this blog (check out: It’s Lit in the City, Is Artificial Light Changing Pigeon Behavior?, SICB 2019: Artificial Light at Night Has Various Effects on Wildlife). Another cross post, but I encourage you to head over to Anole Annals to read the original and hear more about all of the other great anole evolutionary research happening at this meeting!
At the 2019 Evolution Meetings thus far, we’ve seen some excellent work on anoles’ interaction with, and adaptation to, our changing world. Vincent Farrallo gave a talk on modeling the (surprising) effects on climate change on anole species, and Bailey Howell presented a poster on how Anolis cristatellus‘ toepads differ in shape and size between urban and non-urban environments.
In Monday’s poster session, Chris Thawley, a postdoctoral fellow in Jason Kolbe’s lab at the University of Rhode Island who will be teaching at Davidson College in the fall, gave a great contribution to this body of presentations at the meeting. His poster, “Cities in the spotlight: Does tolerance of artificial light at night promote urban invasions?”, showed his detailed work on this “evolutionarily novel condition.” He predicted artificial light at night, or ALAN, would be a double-edged sword for anoles. On the one hand, it perturbs sleep and endocrine cycles, makes it easier to for predators to find an anole late-night snack, and may negatively impact reproduction. It might not necessarily be all negative, however, as it could make it easier for anoles to find food and mates and protect territories.
Chris found significant effects of ALAN on reproductive habits: anoles exposed to ALAN start to lay eggs earlier and lay more eggs than anoles facing natural lighting conditions. Further, ALAN increases anole growth! Interestingly enough, however, Chris found that anoles have no real preference between ALAN and natural lighting conditions, and don’t appear to be more or less stressed under ALAN. In addition to this work with live anoles, Chris searched the literature to see if there’s an overlap between anole species that are invasive and those that have been reported to take advantage of ALAN. There is indeed such an overlap — 7 species are invasive but aren’t known to use ALAN and 8 non-invasive species use ALAN, but there are 15 invasive ALAN-using anole species!
Chris’s next questions involve the effect of ALAN on other taxa, as well as whether urbanizing anole species have adaptations that make them predisposed to take advantage of ALAN and what the effects of plasticity are in doing so. Given the prevalence of artificial light at night, and our love of Anolis, it should prove really exciting to learn more about the interaction between the two!
- New Lit Alert: Urban environment determines population genetics in the green toad, Bufotes viridis - September 11, 2023
- Contribute to the New York Canid Project! - July 21, 2023
- Parallel Urban Adaptation from Phenotype to Genotype in Anolis Lizards - January 19, 2023
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