University of South Florida Scholar Commons Graduate Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 7-14-2010 Geographic Variation in Life History Tactics, Adaptive Growth Rates, and Habitatspecific Adaptations in Phylogenetically Similar Species: The aE stern Fence Lizard, Sceloporus undulatus undulatus, and the Florida Scrub Lizard, Sceloporus woodi Travis R. Robbins University of South Florida Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd Part of the American Studies Commons Scholar Commons Citation Robbins, Travis R., "Geographic Variation in Life History Tactics, Adaptive Growth Rates, and Habitatspecific Adaptations in Phylogenetically Similar Species: The Eastern Fence Lizard, Sceloporus undulatus undulatus, and the Florida Scrub Lizard, Sceloporus woodi" (2010). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3602 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Geographic Variation in Life History Tactics, Adaptive Growth Rates, and Habitat- specific Adaptations in Phylogenetically Similar Species: The Eastern Fence Lizard, Sceloporus undulatus undulatus, and the Florida Scrub Lizard, Sceloporus woodi by Travis R. Robbins A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Integrative Biology College of Arts and Sciences University of South Florida Co-major Professor: Henry R. Mushinsky, Ph.D. Co-major Professor: Earl D. McCoy, Ph.D. Gordon A. Fox, Ph.D. Gary R. Huxel, Ph.D. Date of Approval: July 14, 2010 Keywords: Intrinsic survival, Local adaptation, Squamates, Age at maturity, Plasticity Copyright © 2010, Travis R. Robbins Dedication I dedicate this dissertation to my beautiful wife, Kristan, who has supported me emotionally and financially through the late nights, the occasional taxi services, and the nervous breakdowns. You have shown extreme understanding, and I love you with all my being. I am so glad I found you! I could not have done this without you. I would also like to thank my parents for giving me the opportunities for college, and college, and more college. I have now lived at universities almost as long as I lived at home. Both parts of my life were truly wonderful and have shaped me into the multiple personalities we are now. I want to thank my major professors, Henry and Earl for their perseverance, patience, understanding, knowledge, teaching, money, and beer. You are both amazing, and I could not imagine a better situation in which to prosper. I would also like to thank the amazing faculty of Columbia University’s Biosphere 2 Center, who nurtured my ecological youth through immersion and experience. Thank you Tony, Annie, Frank, Michael, and Rick. And there is one other, who was instrumental in regard to my dissertation research and the army of undergraduates necessary to complete it. Lorelei, thank you for your dedication to these projects, and more importantly, for being my muse. Acknowledgments Many thanks go to the undergraduate army that helped me collect these data and care for the lizards in the laboratory, especially Lorelei Straub. I had many graduate students help me in the field as well, building the enclosures and/or collecting data in the middle of the Florida summer. For your invaluable assistance, I thank you all: Brian Halstead, Neal Halstead, Alison Myers, Dave Karlen, Nick Osman, Jen Rhora, and everyone else. I thank Tom Raffel for statistical help and Ray Martinez for invaluable engineering of specialized tools. I also thank my committee members, Gary Huxel and Gordon Fox, for their nurturing along the way, and reviewing this manuscript, for it has been much improved. This research was partially funded by Sigma Xi Grants-in-Aid of research to TRR. Lizards were collected under collection permit WX05107 issued by the State of Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. All protocols were reviewed and accepted by the USF Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee, IACUC file #2778. Table of Contents List of Tables ............................................................................................................................... iii List of Figures ............................................................................................................................... v Abstract .............................................................................................................................. vii Chapter 1: Introducing the Lizards, Life Histories, and Research ............................................ 1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Study Species ..................................................................................................................... 1 Sources of Geographic Variation in Sceloporus Life History Tactics ................................. 3 Food availability ..................................................................................................... 4 Thermal environments ........................................................................................... 5 Mortality rates ......................................................................................................... 5 Research Outline ................................................................................................................ 6 References .......................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2: Variation in Life History Tactics on a Fine Geographic Scale and Along a Temperature Gradient Elucidates the Cogradient to Countergradient Switch in Sceloporus Lizards ............................................................................................................... 12 Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 12 Key words ............................................................................................................ 13 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 13 Materials and Methods ...................................................................................................... 15 Study species ....................................................................................................... 15 Collection and housing of adult female lizards .................................................... 16 Reproduction ........................................................................................................ 17 Hatchlings ............................................................................................................ 18 Environmental variables ....................................................................................... 18 Results ............................................................................................................................. 19 Adult female lizards .............................................................................................. 19 Reproduction ........................................................................................................ 20 Hatchlings ............................................................................................................ 20 Environmental variables ....................................................................................... 21 Discussion ......................................................................................................................... 21 Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 24 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................. 25 References ........................................................................................................................ 26 Chapter 3: On Intrinsic Growth and Juvenile Survival of Lizard Populations Along a Fine Scale Temperature Gradient: a Reciprocal Transplant Approach ........................... 45 Abstract ............................................................................................................................. 45 Key words ............................................................................................................ 46 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 46 Materials and Methods ...................................................................................................... 50 Study species ....................................................................................................... 50 i Collection and housing of female lizards ............................................................. 51 Egg incubation and hatchling husbandry ............................................................. 52 Reciprocal transplants ......................................................................................... 52 Environmental covariates ....................................................................................