13 documents found, page 1 of 2
Does heat tolerance actually predict animals' geographic thermal limits?
Camacho, Agustín; Rodrigues, Miguel Trefaut; Jayyusi, Refat; Harun, Mohamed; Geraci, Marco; Carretero, Miguel A.; Vinagre, Catarina; Tejedo, MiguelThe "climate extremes hypothesis" is a major assumption of geographic studies of heat tolerance and climatic vulnerability. However, this assumption remains vastly untested across taxa, and multiple factors may contribute to uncoupling heat tolerance estimates and geographic limits. Our dataset includes 1000 entries of heat tolerance data and maximum temperatures for each species' known geographic limits (herea...
Exotic fish in exotic plantations: a multi-scale approach to understand amphibi...
Cruz, Joana; Sarmento, Pedro; Carretero, Miguel A.; White, Piran C. L.Globally, amphibian populations are threatened by a diverse range of factors including habitat destruction and alteration. Forestry practices have been linked with low diversity and abundance of amphibians. The effect of exotic Eucalyptus spp. plantations on amphibian communities has been studied in a number of biodiversity hotspots, but little is known of its impact in the Mediterranean region. Here, we identi...
Thyroid disruption in the lizard Podarcis bocagei exposed to a mixture of herbi...
Bicho, Rita C.; Amaral, Maria José; Faustino, Augusto M. R.; Power, Deborah M.; Rêma, Alexandra; Carretero, Miguel A.; Soares, Amadeu M. V. M.Pesticide exposure has been related with thyroid disrupting effects in different vertebrate species. However, very little is known about the effects of these compounds in reptiles. In the Mediterranean area, lacertid lizards are the most abundant vertebrate group in agroecosystems, and have been identified as potential model species for reptile ecotoxicology. The aim of this study was to understand if the herbi...
Optimizing protection efforts for amphibian conservation in Mediterranean lands...
García-Muñoz, Enrique; Ceacero, Francisco; Carretero, Miguel A.; Pedrajas-Pulido, Luis; Parra, Gema; Guerrero, FranciscoAmphibians epitomize the modern biodiversity crisis, and attract great attention from the scientific community since a complex puzzle of factors has influence on their disappearance. However, these factors are multiple and spatially variable, and declining in each locality is due to a particular combination of causes. This study shows a suitable statistical procedure to determine threats to amphibian species in...
Lateralization in escape behaviour at different hierarchical levels in a Gecko:...
García-Muñoz, Enrique; Rato, Catarina; Jorge, Fátima; Carretero, Miguel A.At the individual level, to be behaviourally lateralized avoids costly duplication of neural circuitry and decreases possible contradictory order from the two brain hemispheres. However, being prey behaviour lateralized at higher hierarchical levels could generate different negative implications, especially if predators are able to make predictions after multiple encounters. These conflicting pressures, namely ...
Ecophysiological dissimilarities of two sympatric lizards
Osojnik, Nadja; Žagar, Anamarija; Carretero, Miguel A.; García-Muñoz, Enrique; Vrezec, AlThe lizards Podarcis muralis and Iberolacerta horvathi display an overall similarity in morphology and ecology. Although they are widely sympatric in part of their distribution range of Slovenia, areas of altitudinal segregation have been observed. Ecophysiological traits such as preferred body temperatures (T p ) and rates of evaporative water loss (EWL) are some of the factors likely to be subjacent to this p...
Thyroid disruption in the lizard Podarcis bocagei exposed to a mixture of herbi...
Bicho, Rita C.; Amaral, Maria José; Faustino, Augusto M. R.; Power, Deborah; Rêma, Alexandra; Carretero, Miguel A.; Soares, Amadeu M. V. M.Pesticide exposure has been related with thyroid disrupting effects in different vertebrate species. However, very little is known about the effects of these compounds in reptiles. In the Mediterranean area, lacertid lizards are the most abundant vertebrate group in agroecosystems, and have been identified as potential model species for reptile ecotoxicology. The aim of this study was to understand if the herbi...
Biomarkers of exposure and effect in a lacertid lizard (Podarcis bocagei Seoane...
Amaral, Maria José; Sanchez-Hernandez, Juan C.; Bicho, Rita C.; Carretero, Miguel A.; Valente, Ricardo; Faustino, Augusto M. R.; Soares, Amadeu M. V. M.In Europe, reptiles have been recently included in environmental risk-assessment processes for registration of plant-protection products. However, data on toxicity effects of most compounds are lacking. Chlorpyrifos is the most commonly used organophosphorus insecticide worldwide. In the present study, the authors exposed a lacertid lizard, Podarcis bocagei, to sublethal concentrations of chlorpyrifos. Individu...
Lateralization in refuge selection in Podarcis hispanica at different hierarchi...
García-Muñoz, Enrique; Gomes, Verónica; Carretero, Miguel A.The traditional explanation of brain lateralization is that it avoids costly duplication of neural circuitry with the same function as well as decreasing the interference between different functions. This advantage could have important ecological implications in terms of predator–prey interactions. If species are lateralized in escape behavior at an individual level, any predator is facing individually asymmetr...
The usefulness of mesocosms for ecotoxicity testing with lacertid lizards
Amaral, Maria José; Bicho, Rita C.; Carretero, Miguel A.; Sanchez-Hernandez, Juan C.; Faustino, Augusto; Soares, Amadeu M. V. M.; Mann, Reinier M.Mesocosms (i.e., outdoor, man-made representations of natural ecosystems) have seldom been used to study the impact of contaminants on terrestrial ecosystems. However, mesocosms can be a useful tool to provide a link between field and laboratory studies. We exposed juvenile lacertid lizards for a period of over one year to pesticides (herbicides and insecticides) in mesocosm enclosures with the intention of val...