6 documents found, page 1 of 1
Comparative ecophysiology of two sympatric lizards. Laying the groundwork for m...
García-Muñoz, Enrique; Carretero, Miguel AngelDistribution modelling usually makes inferences correlating species presence and environmental variables but does not take biotic relations into account. Alternative approaches based on a mechanistic understanding of biological processes are now being applied. Regarding lacertid lizards, physiological traits such as preferred body temperature (Tp) are well known to correlate with several physiological optima. M...
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...
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...
Adding Acanthodactylus beershebensis to the mtDNA phylogeny of the Acanthodacty...
Carretero, Miguel A.; Fonseca, Miguel M.; García-Muñoz, Enrique; Harris, D. James; Brito, José C.The phylogenetic affinities of Acanthodactylus beershebensis, a highly endangered lacertid lizard endemic to the Neguev (Israel), were assessed using mtDNA markers. Fragments of 12S and 16S rRNA were analysed and compared with already published sequences of Acanthodactylus. Results corroborate the taxonomic placement of A. beershebensis as a member of the A. pardalis group but place it within a polytomy at the ...