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Updated: Mar 6, 2026

A Fish-feeding Laboratory Bioassay to Assess the Antipredatory Activity of Secondary Metabolites from the Tissues of Marine Organisms
Published on: January 11, 2015
An experimental study of interspecific interactions between two Puerto Rican Anolis lizards
Manuel Leal1, Javier A Rodríguez-Robles2, Jonathan B Losos1
1Department of Biology, Campus Box 1137, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899, USA e-mail: mleal@biodec.wustl.edu, Fax: +1 314-9354432, , , , , , US.
Abstract:
We analyzed the impact of interspecific interactions between two ecologically and morphologically distinct Puerto Rican lizards, Anolis gundlachi and A. evermanni, in an experimental design consisting of six 20 × 20 m plots divided into three blocks, each consisting of a pair of experimental and control plots. We removed A. gundlachi from experimental plots and monitored the response of A. evermanni. The reduction in the number of A. gundlachi resulted in a significant increase in the abundance of both adult and juvenile A. evermanni. We found no evidence for a shift in structural habitat use in A. evermanni in experimental plots. Two possible mechanisms, interspecific competition and intraguild predation, could explain the increase in abundance of A. evermanni after the removal of A. gundlachi. These results make clear that interactions still occur between A. gundlachi and A. evermanni even given their morphological and ecological differences.
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