of the Dissertation .......................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ....................................................................................................................... vii Biographical Sketch ..............................................................................................................

red: morph-specific contest success and survival rates in a colour polymorphic agamid lizard. Animal Behaviour 74:337-341. in females is also lateralized: left-eye bias during aggressive courtship rejection in lizards. Assessment in contests of male lizards (Anolis carolinensis): how should smaller males respond when size matters? Animal Behaviour 69:1325-1336.

Although chemoreception plays an important role in social organization of many lizards, only a few studies have examined the chemicals found in secretions used for intraspecific communication. We report the composition of the secretion of the femoral glands of males of the spiny-footed lizard (Acanthodactylus erythrurus). On the basis of mass spectra, obtained by GC/MS, we identified 45 lipophi...

Water provides a unique challenge for legged locomotion because it readily yields to any applied force. Previous studies have shown that static stability during locomotion is possible only when the center of mass remains within a theoretical region of stability. Running across a highly yielding surface could move the center of mass beyond the edges of the region of stability, potentially leadin...

Endocrinological action is generally thought to be a way for animals to respond to stress at low temperatures. To learn the role of hormones in ectotherms inhabiting alpine environments, we studied the effects of acute low temperature exposure on the endocrinological reactions of Qinghai toad-headed lizards in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We monitored plasma corticosterone and insulin concentra...

In the past, it has been proposed that basilisk lizards (Basiliscus basiliscus) are able to reach high population densities because the juveniles and adults have differing water-running abilities and therefore live in different habitats. However, there is no a priori reason to expect juveniles to be better able to run on water than adults. To determine the causal relationship between body size ...

In lizards, one of the most important behavioral mechanisms to cope with spatial and temporal variations in thermal resources observed is activity time. The longer a lizard can maintain activity, the more time it has to forage and reach larger adult body size. We studied the behavioral adjustments to different climatic regimens on daily and seasonal scales in three natural populations of the li...

Biological impacts of climate warming are predicted to increase with latitude, paralleling increases in warming. However, the magnitude of impacts depends not only on the degree of warming but also on the number of species at risk, their physiological sensitivity to warming and their options for behavioural and physiological compensation. Lizards are useful for evaluating risks of warming becau...

Many fleshy-fruited plants from the Mediterranean and Macaronesian islands are dispersed through endozoochory. In mainland Mediterranean areas, reciprocal adaptations have been found between plants and animals, although evidence is scarce. On small isolated oceanic islands, such reciprocal adaptations might well be more prevalent due to intrinsic island traits. Here we evaluate the existence of...