Leftright Dewlap Asymmetry and Phylogeography of Anolis Lineatus on Aruba and Curaao
bs_bs_banner Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2013, ••, ••–••. With 7 figures Left–right dewlap asymmetry and phylogeography of Anolis lineatus on Aruba and Curaçao GABRIEL E. A. GARTNER1,2*, TONY GAMBLE3,4, ALEXANDER L. JAFFE1,2, ALEXIS HARRISON1,2 and JONATHAN B. LOSOS1,2 1Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 2Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 3Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA 4Bell Museum of Natural History, University of Minnesota, St Paul, MN 55455, USA Received 27 March 2013; revised 30 April 2013; accepted for publication 1 May 2013 Anolis lizards exhibit a remarkable degree of diversity in the shape, colour, pattern and size of their dewlaps. Asymmetry, where one side of the dewlap differs in pattern or colour from the other, has only been reported in one species, Anolis lineatus, and then on only one of the two islands from which it occurs. Given the importance of the dewlap in intra- and interspecific signalling, we expanded on previous work by (1) investigating whether the reported asymmetry actually occurs and, if so, whether it occurs on animals from both Aruba and Curaçao; (2) examining whether populations differ in other aspects of their morphology or ecology; and (3) resolving the evolutionary relationships and the history of the two populations. We confirmed the presence of the asymmetrical dewlap on Curaçao and found that the asymmetry extends to populations on Aruba as well. Animals on Curaçao were smaller overall than populations from Aruba with relatively shorter metatarsals, radii, and tibias but relatively deeper heads, longer jaws, and wider and more numerous toepads on fore and hind feet.
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