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opencc-zeroFeb 2024View details →

The reproductive microbiome and maternal transmission via eggs in Sceloporus virgatus

Maternal transmission of microbes occurs across the animal kingdom and is vital for the development and long-term health of offspring. The mechanisms of this transfer are most well studied in humans and other mammals, but are less well understood in egg-laying animals, especially in those with no parental care. Here we investigate the transfer of maternal microbes in Sceloporus virgatus, an oviparous spiny lizard. We compared three maternal tissue microbiomes – oviduct, cloaca, and intestine – to three offspring sample types: egg contents and eggshells on the day of oviposition, and hatchling intestinal tissue on the day of hatching. We found that dam ID is an important factor in hatchling microbiome composition, indicating that maternal transmission is occurring. The maternal cloacal and oviductal communities contribute to offspring microbiomes in all three sample types, but there was minimal influence of maternal intestinal microbes. This indicates that the maternal reproductive microbiome is more important for microbial inheritance than the gut microbiome, and that the tissue-level variation of the adult S. virgatus microbiome must develop as the hatchling matures. Despite differences between adult and hatchling communities, the offspring microbiome was still dominated by Enterobacteriaceae and Yersiniaceae, consistent with past studies of adult S. virgatus microbiomes.

opencc-by-4.0Jan 2019View details →

Plate 34. Sceloporus malachiticus Cope, 1864 in The endemic herpetofauna of Central America: a casualty of anthropocentrism

Plate 34. Sceloporus malachiticus Cope, 1864. The Green Spiny Lizard is a priority three species with an EVS of 10, distributed from "El Salvador and Honduras across Nicaragua and Costa Rica to Panama" (Köhler 2008: 152). This individual was encountered in Cerro de la Muerte, in the province of San José, Costa Rica. Photo by Víctor Acosta-Chaves.

opencc-zeroJul 2024View details →

Data for: Effects of testosterone on gene expression are concordant between sexes but divergent across species of Sceloporus lizards

Hormones mediate sexual dimorphism by regulating sex-specific patterns of gene expression, but it is unclear how much of this regulation involves sex-specific hormone levels versus sex-specific transcriptomic responses to the same hormonal signal. Moreover, transcriptomic responses to hormones can evolve, but the extent to which hormonal pleiotropy in gene regulation is conserved across closely related species is not well understood. We addressed these issues by elevating testosterone levels in juvenile females and males of three Sceloporus lizard species prior to sexual divergence in circulating testosterone, then characterizing transcriptomic responses in the liver. In each species, more genes were responsive to testosterone in males than in females, suggesting that early developmental processes prime sex-specific transcriptomic responses to testosterone later in life. However, overall transcriptomic responses to testosterone were concordant between sexes, with no genes exhibiting sex-by-treatment interactions. By contrast, hundreds of genes exhibited species-by-treatment interactions, particularly when comparing distantly related species with different patterns of sexual dimorphism, suggesting evolutionary lability in gene regulation by testosterone. Collectively, our results indicate that early organizational effects may lead to sex-specific differences in the magnitude, but not the direction, of transcriptomic responses to testosterone, and that the hormone-genome interface accrues regulatory changes over evolutionary time.

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2020View details →

Fig. 2 in Do growth rate and survival differ between undisturbed and disturbed environments for Sceloporus spinosus Wiegmann, 1828 (Squamata: Phrynosomatidae) from Oaxaca, Mexico?

Fig. 2. Growth rate of Sceloporus spinosus. (A) Undisturbed area (UA) males, (B) Disturbed area (DA) males, (C) UA females, and (D) DA females. Black circles represent data points for individual lizards. Modeled relationships between growth and body sizes of males and females: solid lines = Von Bertalanffy, dashed lines = logistic by length, and dotted lines = logistic by mass.

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2020View details →

Fig. 1 in Do growth rate and survival differ between undisturbed and disturbed environments for Sceloporus spinosus Wiegmann, 1828 (Squamata: Phrynosomatidae) from Oaxaca, Mexico?

Fig. 1. Map of the study area. The green polygon depicts Yagul Natural Protected Area, including the two sampling sites (UA = undisturbed area; DA = disturbed area, land use change).

opencc-by-4.0Feb 2020View details →

Fig. 3. Means and 95 in Do growth rate and survival differ between undisturbed and disturbed environments for Sceloporus spinosus Wiegmann, 1828 (Squamata: Phrynosomatidae) from Oaxaca, Mexico?

Fig. 3. Means and 95% confidence intervals of the Asymptotic growth (A) and Characteristic growth (r) parameters obtained by 1 the Von Bertalanffy and logistic by length models for males and females of Sceloporus spinosus in both Disturbed area (DA) and Undisturbed area (UA) populations.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2024View details →

Nesting behavior of striped plateau lizards (Sceloporus virgatus) in a time of climate warming

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opencc-by-4.0Oct 2018View details →

Figure 1 in First quantitative data on the ectoparasitic mites of Sceloporus torquatus (Squamata) from the Ecological Reserve of Pedregal de San Angel in Central Mexico

Figure 1 Parasitic mites associated withSceloporus torquatus in the REPSA, Mexico City. A – Argasidae, Ornithodoros talaje. B-C, Pterygosomatidae, scale bars 200 μm: B – Geckobiella pelaezi; C – Geckobiella texana. D, Trombiculidae,Eutrombicula alfreddugesi, scale bars 80 μm: D – Ventral view, E – Dorsal view.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2018View details →

Figure 2 in First quantitative data on the ectoparasitic mites of Sceloporus torquatus (Squamata) from the Ecological Reserve of Pedregal de San Angel in Central Mexico

Figure 2 Prevalence, abundance, and mean intensity of four species of mites that infest the lizard Sceloporus torquatus in the Reserva Ecológica del Pedregal de San Ángel, Mexico City. Error bars denote confidence intervals (84%). Different letters indicate statistically significant differences.

opencc-zeroJan 2023View details →

Cloacal microbiomes of sympatric and allopatric Sceloporus lizards vary with environment and host relatedness

Animals and their microbiomes exert reciprocal influence; the host's environment, physiology, and phylogeny can impact the composition of the microbiome, while the microbes present can affect host behavior, health, and fitness. While some microbiomes are highly malleable, specialized microbiomes that provide important functions can be more robust to environmental perturbations. Recent evidence suggests Sceloporus virgatus has one such specialized microbiome, which functions to protect eggs from fungal pathogens during incubation. Here, we examine the cloacal microbiome of three different Sceloporus species (spiny lizards; Family Phrynosomatidae) – Sceloporus virgatus, Sceloporus jarrovii, and Sceloporus occidentalis. We compare two species with different reproductive modes (oviparous vs. viviparous) living in sympatry: S. virgatus and S. jarrovii. We compare sister species living in similar habitats (riparian oak-pine woodlands) but different latitudes: S. virgatus and S. occidentalis. And, we compare three populations of one species (S. occidentalis) living in different habitat types: beach, low-elevation forest, and the riparian woodland. We found differences in beta diversity metrics between all three comparisons, although those differences were more extreme between animals in different environments, even though those populations were more closely related. Similarly, alpha diversity varied among the S. occidentalis populations and between S. occidentalis and S. virgatus, but not between sympatric S. virgatus and S. jarrovii. Despite these differences, all three species and all three populations of S. occcidentalis had the same dominant taxon, Enterobacteriaceae. The majority of the variation between groups was in low abundance taxa and at the ASV level, and responded to habitat differences, geographic distance, and host relatedness. Understanding wild microbiomes and factors that influence their composition is important to understanding the ecology and evolution of the host animals.

publicFeb 2024View details →

The reproductive microbiome and maternal transmission via eggs in Sceloporus virgatus

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publicJan 2023View details →

Cloacal microbiomes of sympatric and allopatric Sceloporus lizards vary with environment and host relatedness

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publicJul 2024View details →

Data for: Effects of testosterone on gene expression are concordant between sexes but divergent across species of Sceloporus lizards

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opencc-zeroJan 2024View details →

Cycling temperature treatments and digestion in prairie lizards (Sceloporus consobrinus)

In nature, many organisms experience a daily range of body temperatures. Thermal performance at stable temperatures is often extrapolated to predict function in cyclical environments. However, temperature order and cyclicity may influence physiological processes. The current study compared energy intake, digestive passage time, and energy budgets across stable temperature (30˚C, 33˚C, 36˚C) and two temperature cycles in lizards (Sceloporus conosbrinus), determining 1) if stable treatments adequately project performance in a cycling environment and 2) if temperature order influences performance. Cycles rotated through 30˚C, 33˚C, 36˚C daily, with equal durations of time at each temperature but differing temperature order, with warm days and cool nights in cycle 1 and cool days and warm nights in cycle 2. For analyses, stable treatments were compiled into a single dataset and compared to cycles. If temperature is the primary factor regulating performance, then performance averages from stable treatments and cycles should compare favorably. However, physiological performance varied based on temperature treatment. Intake and energy budgets were similar between stable trials and cycle 1 but not cycle two. Passage time was quicker in cycle 1 than cycle 2 and stable treatment predictions. Notably, the two cycling regimes consistently varied in performance, indicating that temperature order plays a primary role in regulating performance. Physiological data collection requires careful consideration of effects of cycling versus stable temperature treatments. Stable temperatures do not consistently represent performance in cycling regimes and consideration should be paid not only to which temperatures animals experience, but how temperature is experienced in nature.

opencc-zeroJun 2022View details →

Population expansion, divergence, and persistence in western fence lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) at the northern extreme of their distributional range

Population dynamics within species at the edge of their distributional range, including the formation of genetic structure during range expansion, are difficult to study when they have had limited time to evolve. Western Fence Lizards (Sceloporus occidentalis) have a patchy distribution at the northern edge of their range around the Puget Sound, Washington, where they almost exclusively occur on imperiled coastal habitats. The entire region was covered by Pleistocene glaciation as recently as 16,000 years ago, suggesting that populations must have colonized these habitats relatively recently. We tested for population differentiation across this landscape using genome-wide SNPs and morphological data. A time-calibrated species tree supports the hypothesis of a post-glacial establishment and subsequent population expansion into the region. Despite a strong signal for fine-scale population genetic structure across the Puget Sound with as many as 8–10 distinct subpopulations supported by the SNP data, there is minimal evidence for morphological differentiation at this same spatiotemporal scale. Historical demographic analyses suggest that populations expanded and diverged across the region as the Cordilleran Ice Sheet receded. Population isolation, lack of dispersal corridors, and strict habitat requirements are the key drivers of population divergence in this system. These same factors may prove detrimental to the future persistence of populations as they cope with increasing shoreline development associated with urbanization.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Resting metabolic rate of Sceloporus grammicus at intermediate and native elevations

Body maintenance energy requirements are measured as minimal metabolic rate (RMR) of inactive, postabsorptive individuals in the laboratory. For mountain-dwelling species, translocation to the laboratory can mean a change in elevation and thus oxygen pressure, which may affect metabolic rates. Here we present resting metabolic rate (RMR) of three populations of the Mesquite lizard (Sceloporus grammicus) at their native elevations (i.e., 2600, 3200 and 4100 m) and at an intermediate elevation (3100 m). Each lizard was tested at 15, 25, 30 and 35ºC. For each test RMR is given in VCO2 ml/min. Data also includes sex, snout vent length (SVL), body mass, and throat color morph.

opencc-zeroJun 2024View details →

Sceloporus thermal requirements

Thermal requirement data of lizard populations of the genus Sceloporus was obtained from the literature. We collected data on preferred body temperature (Tpref), body temperature in the field (Tb), critical minimum temperature (CTmin), and critical maximum temperature (CTmax) of Sceloporus lizards. Additionally, we reported air and substrate temperature at the location of capture, if reported in the papers, and the relation of body temperature with these environmental temperatures. Whenever possible, we reported coordinates and elevation of the study sites, with available data on environmental temperatures (i.e., bioclim data, data from nearby meteorological stations, and the Köppen-Geiger climate classification). When reported, thermal efficiency indexes are given (i.e. thermoregulation accuracy, thermoquality of the habitat, and thermoregulation efficiency).

opencc-zeroOct 2023View details →

Data from: Vomeronasal organ volume increases with body size and is dissociated with loss of a visual signal in Sceloporus lizards

Many organisms communicate using signals in different sensory modalities (multicomponent or multimodal). When one signal or component is lost over evolutionary time, it may be indicative of changes in other characteristics of the signaling system, including the sensory organs used to perceive and process signals. Sceloporus lizards predominantly use chemical and visual signals to communicate, yet some species have lost the ancestral ventral color patch used in male-male agonistic interactions and exhibit increased chemosensory behavior. Here, we asked whether evolutionary loss of this sexual signal is associated with larger vomeronasal organ (VNO) volumes (an organ that detects chemical scents) compared to species that have retained the color patch. We measured VNO coronal section areas of 7–8 adult males from each of 11 Sceloporus species (4 that lost and 7 that retained the color patch), estimated sensory and total epithelium volume, and compared volumes using phylogenetic ANCOVA, controlling for body size. Contrary to expectations, we found that species retaining the ventral patch had similar relative VNO volumes as did species that have lost the ancestral patch, and that body size explains VNO epithelium volume. Visual signal loss may be sufficiently compensated for by increased chemosensory behavior, and the allometric pattern may indicate sensory system trade-offs for large-bodied species.

opencc-zeroOct 2023View details →

Effects of mite load on growth and body condition in Sceloporus undulatus

Parasitism is nearly ubiquitous in animals and is frequently associated with fitness costs in host organisms, including reduced growth, foraging, and reproduction. In many species, males tend to be more heavily parasitized than females and thus may bear greater costs of parasitism. Sceloporus undulatus is a female-larger, sexually-size dimorphic lizard species that is heavily parasitized by chigger mites (Eutrombicula alfreddugesi). In particular, the intensity of mite parasitism is higher in male than in female juveniles during the period of time when sex differences in growth rate lead to the development of sexual size dimorphism (SSD). Sex-biased differences in fitness costs of parasitism have been documented in other species. We investigated whether there are growth costs of mite ectoparasitism, at a time coinciding with sex differences in growth rate and the onset of SSD. If there are sex-biased growth costs of parasitism, then this could suggest a contribution to the development of SSD in S. undulatus. We measured growth and mite loads in two cohorts of unmanipulated, field-active yearlings by conducting descriptive mark-recapture studies during the activity seasons of 2016 and 2019. Yearling males had consistently higher mid-summer mite loads and consistently lower growth rates than females. However, we found that growth rate and body condition were independent of mite load in both sexes. Furthermore, growth rates and mite loads were higher in 2019 than in 2016. Our findings suggest that juveniles of S. undulatus are highly tolerant of chigger mites and that any costs imposed by mites may be at the expense of functions other than growth. We conclude that sex-biased mite ectoparasitism does not contribute to sex differences in growth rate and, therefore, does not contribute to the development of SSD.