Elsevier

Animal Behaviour

Volume 111, January 2016, Pages 329-339
Animal Behaviour

Behavioural differences across contexts may indicate morph-specific strategies in the lizard Ctenophorus decresii

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2015.10.029Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We tested for differences in behaviour of male tawny dragon colour morphs.

  • Morphs consistently differ in conspecific aggressive and antipredator behaviours.

  • Alternative strategies may maintain colour polymorphism in this species.

Discrete colour polymorphisms are often genetically correlated with other traits under natural and sexual selection, such as behaviour, life history and physiology. Elucidating such correlations is essential to understand the adoption of alternative strategies between morphs and the role they play in the maintenance of colour polymorphisms within a population. Using field experiments, we tested the hypothesis that four visually discrete morphs (orange, yellow, yellow with a central orange patch (orange-yellow) and grey) of the tawny dragon lizard, Ctenophorus decresii, display alternative behavioural strategies. Specifically, we compared the response of colour morphs to simulated conspecific territorial intruders and predators in the wild. Although the orange-yellow morph can be objectively classified, it may behaviourally resemble the orange or yellow morph; therefore we compared statistical models in which the orange-yellow morph was considered a separate morph (four-morph model) or grouped with either pure orange or pure yellow individuals (three-morph models). For aggression, a three-morph model with orange-yellow individuals grouped as yellow morphs best fitted the data. The orange morph showed consistently high aggression to all morphs, while the grey morph showed consistently low aggression. Aggression of the yellow morph was conditional on the morph of the intruder. In addition to being the least aggressive, the grey morph was the least bold. Although the orange morph was the most aggressive, it was only the boldest under a three-morph model, which was equally likely compared to a four-morph model. Overall our results support the view that tawny dragon lizard morphs adopt different behavioural strategies, the orange and grey morphs exhibiting more aggressive and cautious strategies, respectively, and the yellow morph changing its aggression depending on its competitor's colour.

Section snippets

Study Species

The tawny dragon lizard is a small, sexually dimorphic agamid lizard found on rocky outcrops of Kangaroo Island, Mt Lofty Ranges and the southern Flinders Ranges of South Australia (Houston, 1974, McLean et al., 2013). Males exhibit striking throat colour variation both within and between populations (Houston, 1998). In the Flinders Ranges, populations comprise discrete male colour morphs of orange, yellow, grey and orange-yellow coloration (Teasdale et al., 2013) whereas southern populations

Aggression

There was no difference in levels of aggression or attack response between years or due to the order that coloured models were presented (aggression level: year: F1, 28 = 0.06, P = 0.801; order: F4, 115 = 1.30, P = 0.274; attack response: year: F1, 28 = 0.03, P = 0.857; order: F4, 115 = 1.14, P = 0.343). There was no difference in perch temperature during model presentations between morphs (ANOVA: F3, 133 = 1.52, P = 0.213).

After stepwise model selection with aggression levels as the dependent variable, head width

Discussion

Our results show that tawny dragon colour morphs have different behavioural responses to both simulated conspecifics and predators. For aggression, the data best fitted a three-morph model (orange, yellow, grey) with orange-yellow individuals classified as yellow. The orange morph showed consistently high aggression and the grey morph consistently low aggression to all other morphs; in contrast, the aggression level of the yellow morph was conditional on the throat colour of the intruder with

Acknowledgments

We are grateful to Rachael Bartlett, Enrique Cruz, Fran Lyndon-Gee, Sarah Grogan, Jessica Hacking, David Hamilton, Jenni Hetz, Molly Hunter, Claire McLean, Adnan Moussalli, Montse Sutulov, Tim Tan, Luisa Teasdale, Bryant Turffs and Peter Yewers for help in the field. We thank Associate Professor Graham Hepworth from the Statistical Consulting Centre at The University of Melbourne for statistical assistance. This work was supported by the Australia Research Council (DP1092908) to D.S–F., the

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