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Ecological release in lizard assemblages of neotropical savannas

  • Community Ecology
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Abstract

We compare lizard assemblages of Cerrado and Amazonian savannas to test the ecological release hypothesis, which predicts that niche dimensions and abundance should be greater in species inhabiting isolated habitat patches with low species richness (Amazonian savannas and isolated Cerrado patches) when compared with nonisolated areas in central Cerrado with greater species richness. We calculated microhabitat and diet niche breadths with data from 14 isolated Cerrado patches and Amazon savanna areas and six central Cerrado populations. Morphological data were compared using average Euclidean distances, and lizard abundance was estimated using the number of lizards captured in pitfall traps over an extended time period. We found no evidence of ecological release with respect to microhabitat use, suggesting that historical factors are better microhabitat predictors than ecological factors. However, data from individual stomachs indicate that ecological release occurs in these areas for one species (Tropidurus) but not others (Ameiva ameiva, Anolis, Cnemidophorus, and Micrablepharus), suggesting that evolutionary lineages respond differently to environmental pressures, with tropidurids being more affected by ecological factors than polychrotids, teiids, and gymnophthalmids. We found no evidence that ecological release occurs in these areas using morphological data. Based on abundance data, our results indicate that the ecological release (density compensation) hypothesis is not supported: lizard species are not more abundant in isolated areas than in nonisolated areas. The ecology of species is highly conservative, varying little from assemblage to assemblage. Nevertheless, increases in niche breadth for some species indicate that ecological release occurs as well.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Alison Gainsbury, Adrian Garda, Ayrton Péres Jr., Cristiane Batista, Daniel Diniz, Frederico França, Gabriel Costa, Gustavo Vieira, Helga Wiederhecker, Janalee Caldwell, Kátia Colli, Mariana Zatz, and S. Balbino for help with the fieldwork. This work was supported by a doctorate fellowship from Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior-CAPES to DOM, a research fellowship from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico-CNPq to GRC (# 302343/88-1). Programa Nacional de Diversidade Biológica-PRONABIO (project “Estrutura e dinâmica de isolados naturais e antrópicos de Cerrado: lições para biologia da conservação”), Fundação o Boticário de Proteção à Natureza (project “Herpetofauna das savanas amazônicas: subsídios para sua preservação”), and Conservation International do Brasil (project “Proposta de levantamento da herpetofauna da micro-região do Jalapão”) funded the research. Portions of the project were conducted under the auspices of a National Science Foundation (USA) grant DEB-0415430. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s), and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. We declare that the research performed in the present manuscript comply with the current laws of Brazil.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Zoologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade de Brasília, 70910-900, Brasília, DF, Brazil

    Daniel Oliveira Mesquita & Guarino Rinaldi Colli

  2. Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and Zoology Department, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73072, USA

    Laurie J. Vitt

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  1. Daniel Oliveira Mesquita
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  2. Guarino Rinaldi Colli
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Correspondence to Daniel Oliveira Mesquita.

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Communicated by Thomas Miller.

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Mesquita, D.O., Colli, G.R. & Vitt, L.J. Ecological release in lizard assemblages of neotropical savannas. Oecologia 153, 185–195 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-007-0725-z

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