Tameness of insular lizards and loss of biological diversity
Article Abstract:
Reduction in behavioral diversity may also amount to a reduction in genetic diversity. When organisms get rid or some eveolved behavior, that constitutes a threat to a subtle factor in biological diversity that is often overlooked. Wariness of lava lizards, which have in the past appeared to be very tame, has greatly increased on islands to which domestic cats have been brought. It is never clear with naive animals that tameness is developed; wariness may have been lost. Whether or not lost tameness can be recovered is a topic of interest. Neither evolution nor extinction goes backward. Tameness may or may not be genetic and its loss may not be unfortunate. The spiny-tailed iguana in continental Mexico and now in Baja California serves as another example.
Publication Name: Conservation Biology
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0888-8892
Year: 1998
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The impact of individual tree harvesting on thermal environments of lizards in Amazonian rain forest
Article Abstract:
The population density of large-bodied lizards may be impacted by single-tree harvesting practices in the Amazonian rain forest. Because the lizards' bodies require sunlight to gain heat, tree harvesting can cause a population increase. This would enhance the lizards' predation on other species, causing a cascade effect on forest community structure.
Publication Name: Conservation Biology
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0888-8892
Year: 1998
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Edge effects on lizards and frogs in tropical forest fragments
Article Abstract:
A study is done to find out whether forest pasture edges affect the distribution of an assemblage of small vertebrate ectotherms in a consistent and predictable manner. The results indicate that the magnitude of the edge effect on any one species was not influenced by the size of fragments or by the interior plot from the nearest edge.
Publication Name: Conservation Biology
Subject: Zoology and wildlife conservation
ISSN: 0888-8892
Year: 2001
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