Fig 4 - uploaded by Rogério Benevides De Miranda
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-Mimicry relationships for Neotropical lizards based in literature. Circular graphs at intersection nodes represent the presence probability for a character state in the clade.
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Lizards are commonly preyed by a great variety of predators, including vertebrates and invertebrates. Therefore, it is expected that lizards have developed a wide range of antipredator traits, increasing their chances of successful survival during agonistic events. Defence against predation involves two levels of behavioural strategies, commonly na...
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... Cerrado trees, as Kilmeyera spp., which releases their leaves after the fire. These leaves often keep the main nervure yellowish. The function of the opaque colouration of the tail and head that individuals show in recently burned areas remains unknown and is not related to skin shedding. We call this new defensive defence pyrogenic camouflage (Fig. ...
Citations
... Diverse anti-predatory behaviors and strategies have been long reported across different vertebrate taxa as mechanisms to avoid detection, give warning to the group, and/or escape predators in active pursuit (Magurran 1990, Caro 2014, Saavedra and Amo 2020, Hernández-Palma et al. 2023, James et al. 2023. In squamate reptiles, active and passive defense traits include mimicry, aposematic displays, caudal autotomy, thanatosis, agony vocalization, and rapid locomotory escape (Cooper et al. 2004, Labra et al. 2013, Fuentes et al. 2021, Miranda et al. 2022, Kojima et al. 2024. Some lizard species have been recorded to utilize aquatic environment as temporary refugium to escape from predators. ...
... Non-avian reptiles may use a large set of defensive strategies when faced with stressful situations, such as the presence of potential predators (Gans & Maderson, 1973;Gibbons & Dorcas, 2002) including the use of sounds as defensive displays (Miranda et al., 2023). In snakes, hissing, vocal sounds, cloacal popping, scale abrasion and tail vibration have been reported as sounds used as defensive displays (Young, 2003;Russel & Bauer, 2021;Fernandes et al., 2023). ...
Although hissing is a common strategy of defence used by snakes, especially of the Phytonidae and Boidae families, few studies have described in detail the acoustics components of this behaviour. Here we gathered eight recordings from six different boas from Brazil and extracted acoustic measurements from their hissing sounds. We also examined the potential of our measurements to encode individual identity using discriminant function analyses (DFAs) and to correlate with body length using linear mixed models (LMMs). Boas produce from four to 12 hisses per minute (7.13 ±
3.04) evoked by a negative stimulus, a visual looming stimulus generated by researcher’s approach. Each hiss usually has two parts (the first louder part and the second softer part) that are basically broadband white noises split by a short silent interval. The first hiss part also has more frequency modulations and narrower bandwidth than the second hiss part. The DFAs correctly assigned all hisses to their correspondent individuals in the testing data. The first discriminant function explained most of the variance (>84%) in the discrimination between groups for the entire hiss and for both hiss parts in the training data subset. Frequency parameters and spectral entropy (for entire hiss and hiss part 1) and the mean frequency and duration (for hiss part 2) were the strongest absolute loadings in the DFAs. Intraspecific morphological traits (e.g. sexual dimorphism and ontogenetic variations) may influence the sound parameters, as detected by individual variations
and the tendency for larger individuals to produce lower frequency hisses. Further studies may investigate these aspects in detail, including anatomy of the snake’s larynx and experiments with different types of predators.
... Similar behavior has been reported in lizards (Savage 2002;Hare and Miller 2009;Zuluaga-Isaza et al. 2022;Miranda et al. 2023) and once previously in C. grandisquamis in Colombia (Rojas-Morales and Marín-Martínez 2022), although that snake was completely hidden under a single rock for nearly 15½ minutes. ...
... Predation is a complex ecological process involving multiple stages where predators locate, capture, and consume their prey (Miranda et al. 2022). It stands as the primary cause of mortality in natural populations, occurring at any life stage (Vitt and Caldwell 2013). ...
... Predation can be defined as the consumption of tissues from a previously living organism by another organism (Miranda et al. 2022). However, it is a complex ecological process that involves multiple stages in which predators locate, capture, and consume their prey (Miranda et al. 2022). ...
... Predation can be defined as the consumption of tissues from a previously living organism by another organism (Miranda et al. 2022). However, it is a complex ecological process that involves multiple stages in which predators locate, capture, and consume their prey (Miranda et al. 2022). Predation is the primary cause of mortality in natural populations, occurring at any stage of an individual's life (Vitt and Caldwell 2013). ...
... Decreased sensitivity: Large mammals [166,167]; species with black morphs or that can change their color after a fire, likely diminishing predator detectability while foraging after a fire [168]; invertebrates with higher cuticle thickness, which gives the animal the advantage of reducing water loss (desiccation resistance) [169]. ...
Recent studies have argued that changes in fire regimes in the 21st century are posing a major threat to global biodiversity. In this scenario, incorporating species' physiological, ecological, and evolutionary traits with their local fire exposure might facilitate accurate identification of species most at risk from fire. Here, we developed a framework for identifying the animal species most vulnerable to extinction from fire-induced stress in the Brazilian savanna. The proposed framework addresses vulnerability from two components: (1) exposure, which refers to the frequency, extent, and magnitude to which a system or species experiences fire, and (2) sensitivity, which reflects how much species are affected by fire. Sensitivity is based on biological, physiological, and behavioral traits that can influence animals' mortality "during" and "after" fire. We generated a Fire Vulnerability Index (FVI) that can be used to group species into four categories, ranging from extremely vulnerable (highly sensible species in highly exposed areas), to least vulnerable (low-sensitivity species in less exposed areas). We highlight the urgent need to broaden fire vulnerability assessment methods and introduce a new approach considering biological traits that contribute significantly to a species' sensitivity alongside regional/local fire exposure.
Inducible defence strategies evolve in response to temporally and spatially variable predation risk. Selection should favour the expression of these strategies when risk crosses a threshold, but expression may also depend on how effective a strategy is across contexts. For neotropical harvestmen, aggregation behaviour is a group-level defence strategy but can be supplemented by additional behaviour to enhance antipredator defence. A secondary behavioural strategy termed “bobbing”, in which individuals rapidly move their bodies up and down, has been proposed to confuse or deter predation as the group moves en masse. While this behaviour may be performed in isolation, we propose that its net pay-off may depend on the presence of conspecifics and group size. Therefore, due to the benefits of plasticity in a behaviour with such an apparent context dependent pay-off, we hypothesize that the aggregation size of neotropical harvestmen affects the propensity of individuals to engage in the antipredator bobbing defence. We predicted that individuals would be more likely to perform bobbing in aggregations as opposed to in isolation. We collected harvestmen (Prionostemma sp.) at La Selva Biological Research Station, Costa Rica, and exposed them to a simulated predator cue when housed within experimental chambers. Individuals were more likely to engage in bobbing when in a group than alone. Moreover, we performed field observations that found bobbing to be a more frequent response as group size increased. Our results show social context-dependence of an inducible antipredator defence behaviour that aligns with proposed costs and benefits of its expression.
La diversidad de lagartijas en el Neotrópico es notablemente alta, participan en varias interacciones ecológicas y son componentes relevantes de la red alimentaria en muchos de los ambientes donde habitan. Sphaerodactylidae es una familia muy diversa de pequeños gecos diurnos, con seis especies en Costa Rica, incluido el geco de cabeza amarilla Gonatodes albogularis. Las arañas de cuerpo grande, como algunas Trechaleidae, son capaces de depredar lagartijas, como la araña de bromelia Cupiennius coccineus. Esta no construye telas, sino que embosca y captura presas directamente de la superficie de las hojas y otras partes de las plantas que utilizan para enviar y recibir vibraciones. Reportamos el caso de un geco de cabeza amarilla depredado por una araña de bromelia como el primer reporte de esta interacción trófica en el Bosque Húmedo Tropical del norte de Costa Rica.
