1. Microhabitat use and antipredator behaviour (i.e. behavioural response to a bird model and refuge microhabitat) was measured in an experimental set-up for 11 lacertid lizard species. Additionally, locomotor performance (sprint speed, climbing and clambering speed, manoeuvrability and endurance) of the same species was quantified. 2. The results showed considerable interspecific variation in ...

Live scleractinian corals are a prime microhabitat for many recruiting coral reef fishes, yet live coral cover has exhibited widespread declines, and the impact of this loss on recruiting fishes is not well understood. Although reduced recruitment rates of parrotfishes (Scaridae) have been observed after loss of coral cover, increased juvenile parrotfish abundance observed in connection with in...

Gobies (Teleostei: Gobiidae) are an extremely diverse and widely distributed group and are the second most species rich family of vertebrates. Ecological drivers are key to the evolutionary success of the Gobiidae. However, ecological and phylogenetic data are lacking for many diverse genera of gobies. Our study investigated the evolution of microhabitat association across the phylogeny of 18 s...

We studied the ecology of Tropidurus itambere and T. oreadicus that occur syntopically in rocky habitats of Cerrado vegetation in central Brazil during the dry season (April to September 2000). The two species are ecologically similar, but somewhat differentiated in vertical microhabitat use. The two species preferred rocky surface microhabitat. Both species demonstrated a unimodal activity pat...

Understanding selection of breeding habitat is critical to conserving and restoring habitats for the Greater Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), particularly in xeric landscapes (≤25 cm annual precipitation). We monitored radio-marked female sage-grouse in south-central Wyoming in 2008 and 2009 to assess microhabitat use during nesting and brood rearing. For each model we grouped variables...

We monitored meteorological variables, daily and seasonal patterns of body temperature, corresponding operative temperatures, and microhabitat utilization by desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) during the 1991 and 1992 activity seasons of tortoises in the eastern Mojave desert. We studied tortoises in enclosures of natural habitat at the Desert Tortoise Conservation Center (DTCC) near Las Veg...

The threat of predation is often the largest cost associated with foraging (Brown & Kotler 2004; Preisser et al. 2005; Creel & Christianson 2008). Foragers primarily assess the threat of predation based on indirect cues of risk, such as microhabitat features and environmental conditions (Orrock et al. 2004; Verdolin 2006). For example, small mammals often respond to the threat of predation by b...

Anurans are ectothermic animals very sensitive to temperature, mainly during the embryonic stage. In addition, environmental temperature decreases with altitude, and the amphibian fauna changes. Therefore, we studied the relationship between the embryonic thermal tolerances of twelve species of anurans and the temperatures of their microhabitat along an altitudinal gradient from 430 m to 2600 m...

Patterns of ecological specialization offer invaluable information about ecosystems. Yet, specialization is rarely quantified across several ecological niche axes and variables beyond the link between morphological and dietary specialization have received little attention. Here, we provide a quantitative evaluation of ecological specialization in a coral reef fish assemblage (f. Acanthuridae) a...

Arid shrublands are stressful environments, typified by alkaline soils low in organic matter, with biologically-limiting extremes in water availability, temperature, and UV radiation. The widely-spaced plants and interspace biological soil crusts in these regions provide soil nutrients in a localized fashion, creating a mosaic pattern of plant- or crust-associated microhabitats with distinct nu...