a 2022

Environment as a driver for color polymorphism in sand lizards (Lacerta agilis)

SAU, Shubhra, Radovan SMOLINSKÝ, Zuzana HIADLOVSKÁ, Karel RIEBEL, Natália MARTÍNKOVÁ et. al.

Základní údaje

Originální název

Environment as a driver for color polymorphism in sand lizards (Lacerta agilis)

Název anglicky

Environment as a driver for color polymorphism in sand lizards (Lacerta agilis)

Autoři

Vydání

2022

Další údaje

Typ výsledku

Konferenční abstrakt

Utajení

není předmětem státního či obchodního tajemství

Odkazy

Klíčová slova česky

lacerta agilis, distribuce

Klíčová slova anglicky

lacerta agilis, distribution
Změněno: 24. 11. 2022 15:34, Ing. Radovan Smolinský, Ph.D., PhD.

Anotace

V originále

Color polymorphism refers to the presence of two or more genetically inherited color phenotypes in a same breeding population. Color has an impact on organism behavior and survival, and can serve as warning signals, sex-specific recognition, enhances thermoregulations, or communicates about the behavioral state of the particular organism. While sexual selection is frequently used to explain the persistence of polymorphisms, the role of environmental factors has received little attention. Sand lizards (Lacerta agilis, Linnaeus 1758) are small lacertid lizards, sexually dimorphic, with sympatric color morphs found throughout temperate Palearctic. The sand lizard distribution is one of the largest ranges of reptiles’ species, and it could help to understand how reptiles persist in ecosystems with anthropogenic influences. We hypothesized that different color morphs of sand lizards are distributed throughout the Palearctic realm depending on different environmental conditions. The goal of this study was to see how much morph composition in a color polymorphic lizard is explained by geographical and climate variation. We used publicly available data on sand lizard occurrence in Global Biodiversity Information Facility and environmental variables from WORLDCLIM and SEDAC databases. We categorized the sand lizard photos to ten distinct color morphs resulting in 1256 data points after thinning. We predicted the color morph ecological niches using maximum entropy models. We identified a striking link between environmental conditions and color morph distribution, implying that environmental selection acts differently on color morphs, most likely in conjunction with sexual selection.