Urban lizards use sleep sites that mirror the structural, thermal, and light properties of natural sites

Mohanty, Nitya Prakash; Joshi, Mihir; Thaker, Maria

doi:10.1007/s00265-021-03101-5

Cited by 6 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…night (ALAN) on sleeping sites in lizards (Psammophilus dorsalis) and glow time in sexual signalling by glow worms (Lampyris noctiluca). Mohanty et al (2021) found that the sleeping sites of lizards in urban areas match the properties of those of lizards in natural sites in terms of the amount of light the lizards are exposed to and the structural and thermal traits. This creative and trail blazing study is one of the first to explore sleep behaviour, and we expect other studies to see the usefulness of exploring this question in urban areas.…”

Section: Using Behavioural Ecology To Explore Adaptive Responses To A...mentioning

confidence: 88%

Using behavioural ecology to explore adaptive responses to anthropogenic change — introduction

Gabor

Lindström

Garcı́a

2022

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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Section: Using Behavioural Ecology To Explore Adaptive Responses To A...mentioning

confidence: 88%

Using behavioural ecology to explore adaptive responses to anthropogenic change — introduction

Gabor

Lindström

Garcı́a

2022

Behav Ecol Sociobiol

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“…The ways in which the environmental effects of urbanization scale across space can influence the relative importance of these potential selection factors for species survival (Uchida et al, 2021). For an urban utilizer like P. dorsalis, which is known to exhibit high behavioral and physiological flexibility in response to urbanization (Amdekar et al, 2018;Batabyal and Thaker, 2019a;Mohanty et al, 2021), most features of urbanization showed little effect on its distribution and abundance. However, not all species are expected to respond as urban utilizers (Fischer et al, 2015), and studies that increase spatial and temporal resolution of sampling will be needed to understand the distribution patterns of those taxa and of biodiversity in general.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Lizards in the urban areas are also less risk averse, as measured by their shorter flight initiation distances from an approaching human (Batabyal et al, 2017), and are faster to learn the locations of safe refuges (Batabyal and Thaker, 2019a). The behavioural flexibility of this species extends to the selection of sleep sites that limit artificial illumination in urban areas (Mohanty et al, 2021). In the social and sexual context, males of P. dorsalis utilise a reactive social coping style in urban areas, unlike the proactive strategy of males in rural areas (Batabyal et al, 2017;Batabyal and Thaker, 2019b).…”

Section: Psammophilus Dorsalis In Bengalurumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, habitat composition, including vegetation cover is an important factor that influences insect diversity and density, the primary source of food for the insectivorous P. dorsalis (Balakrishna et al, 2016). The availability of rocks and boulders, or artificial substrates with similar structural properties, are used as active and sleep sites, and therefore, are also critical resources for this agamid lizard (Radder et al, 2005;Mohanty et al, 2021). Similarly, higher LST could be beneficial for efficient thermoregulation, whereas ALAN would be disruptive for sleep (Aulsebrook et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An expanding cityscape and its multi-scale effects on lizard distribution

Thaker¹,

Amdekar²,

Mohanty³

et al. 2022

Front. Conserv. Sci.

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Urbanization results in complex and variable changes to environmental conditions, which translate to shifts in selection pressures for organisms. Size of a city as well as the intensity and extent of urbanization can synergistically influence how organisms are impacted. However, less is known about how landscape heterogeneity, rate of land-use change, and scale of urbanization affect species persistence. We evaluate the ways in which urbanization changes the environment and examine how some of these environmental factors influence the presence of the lizard Psammophilus dorsalis (Peninsular rock agama), in Bengaluru, India. Variability in environmental factors across the study area was characterised by measures of habitat composition and diversity, habitat connectivity, rate of habitat change, predation pressure, land surface temperature (LST) and artificial light at night (ALAN), that were derived from remotely sensed and citizen science data. Most of these factors showed high variance across two measures of urbanization: distance from city center and proportion of built-up area. Habitat diversity and ALAN were the only two factors that changed predictably and in a non-linear way, with distance from the city center and proportion of built-up area. We then used a multi-scale approach to examine the relative importance of some these environmental factors at the landscape scale, as well as additional factors at the microhabitat-scale, in predicting the presence and relative abundance of P. dorsalis respectively. At the landscape scale, LST, which is positively correlated with proportion of cropland, predicted lizard presence; whereas at the microhabitat scale, P. dorsalis was more likely to be found in sites with higher proportions of rocks. Overall, we demonstrate that urbanization can result in environmental predictors that do not vary linearly across the urbanization gradient. For the iconic rock agama, many of these environmental factors do not seem to be strong selection pressures that influence their distribution in the expanding cityscape. Whether this urban utilizer can continue to persist with increasing anthropogenic development is uncertain. To better understand drivers of species persistence, we emphasize the importance of quantifying urbanization across multiple axes, considering environmental factors that are relevant to species at different spatial and temporal scales.

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“…Anthropogenic habitat modification, such as urbanisation and agricultural development, substantially alters spatial attributes of landscapes. These transformative processes fragment, degrade and/or remove natural ecosystems (Alberti 2016), creating novel environments and conditions (Mohanty et al 2021), modifying resource availability and diversity (Lim et al 2017), and introducing exotic species (Arazmi et al 2022), pathogens (Mavroidi 2008) and toxic contaminants (Lettoof et al 2022). As urbanisation increases at a rate and scale unmatched by background levels of understanding functional traits of urban-adapted vertebrate species has been conducted on birds (Callaghan et al 2019;Evans et al 2011), mammals (Santini et al 2019), and amphibians (Liu et al 2021), but is broadly lacking for reptiles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Snake life history traits and their association with urban habitat use in a tropical city

et al. 2023

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Urbanisation changes landscapes, often simplifying and homogenising natural ecosystems while introducing novel environments. Although this transformation often adversely impacts native wildlife, generalist species that exhibit broad dietary and habitat requirements can persist and take advantage of urban environments. To understand which life history traits most influence the occurrence of a diverse snake assemblage in an urban environment, we leveraged a dataset of 5102 detection records for 12 snake species in the tropical city of Darwin, Australia. By building ecological niche models, calculating urban niche hypervolume, and compiling life history data, we analysed the diversity of environments occupied by each species and determined which landscape components were most associated with occurrence data. In keeping with our hypothesis that generalist species would be more successful, we found that species with broader habitat and dietary preferences, as well as a penchant for arboreality, were associated with larger urban niche hypervolumes and more frequent human–snake interactions. Additionally, we found that colubrid snakes had significantly larger urban niche hypervolumes than elapid species. These findings contribute to understanding how life history traits aid wildlife persistence in, and adaptation to, urban ecosystems, and have implications for landscape design and conservation management.

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Urban lizards use sleep sites that mirror the structural, thermal, and light properties of natural sites

Cited by 6 publications

References 58 publications

Using behavioural ecology to explore adaptive responses to anthropogenic change — introduction

Using behavioural ecology to explore adaptive responses to anthropogenic change — introduction

An expanding cityscape and its multi-scale effects on lizard distribution

Snake life history traits and their association with urban habitat use in a tropical city

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