Bartosz Borczyk

Bartosz Borczyk
University of Wrocław | WROC · Department of Evolutionary Biology and Conservation of Vertebrates

PhD

About

81
Publications
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221
Citations

Publications

Publications (81)
Article
Full-text available
Background Legless lizards, the slow worms of the genus Anguis, are forming secondary contact zones within their Europe-wide distribution. Methods We examined 35 populations of A. fragilis and A. colchica to identify the level of morphological and genetic divergence in Poland. We applied a conventional study approach using metric, meristic, and ca...
Data
The data include the description of the age and the concentrations of Cu, Ni Cd, Pb, Zn, Ag, Mg, Fe, Co and Ca measured in the isolated, emptied gastrointestinal tract, the whole body, and carcass of the each individual nestling of a different age and hence a different stage of post-natal development. The dataset includes also some additional infor...
Article
Full-text available
The dataset presented in this data paper supports “The prenatal assimilation of minerals and metals in the nestlings of a small passerine bird” (Orłowski et al. 2024) [1]. The article includes raw data on dead nestlings of a small passerine bird, the Eurasian Reed Warbler Acrocephalus scirpaceus breeding in an extensive reedbed (with dominating pla...
Article
Full-text available
This article presents critique of the most important errors and flaws of the recently published article by Gündemir et al. entitled "Shape differences of the Carina sterni in birds of various locomotion types". Numerous problems arise, including study design, statistical approach, interpretation of the results and others. It also raises the questio...
Article
Full-text available
Although certain metals can reach their highest concentrations in tissues of newly hatched nestlings, their sources have yet to be fully elucidated. Evidence for the differentiation of body reserves, including some chemical elements, during avian embryonic life and early post-hatching period is limited mostly to studies on poultry. Here, we present...
Article
Full-text available
The aim of this study was to determine the level of infection of Ixodes ricinus ticks with pathogens (Borrelia spp., Rickettsia spp., and Anaplasma spp.) collected from Lacerta agilis and Zootoca vivipara lizards in the urban areas of Wrocław (SW Poland). The study was carried out in July-August 2020. Lizards were caught by a noose attached to a po...
Article
Squamates exhibit evident diversity in their limb morphology. Gekkotans are a particularly diverse group in this respect. The appearance of toepads in gekkotans usually cooccurs with the reduction or loss of claws. The gecko Tarentola (Phyllodactylidae) shows a unique combination of features among geckos, with toepads, hyperphalangy, and dimorphism...
Article
Full-text available
Sexual dimorphism in the size and shape of the body and head is the result of manifold selective pressures acting on organisms. In snakes, sexual size dimorphism is common and has been well-studied. However, intersexual differences in relative head size and shape have attracted far less attention. Similarly, the allometric properties of head shape...
Article
Full-text available
Background Sexual dimorphism in size and shape is widespread among squamate reptiles. Sex differences in snake skull size and shape are often accompanied by intersexual feeding niche separation. However, allometric trajectories underlying these differences remain largely unstudied in several lineages. The sea krait Laticauda colubrina (Serpentes: E...
Preprint
Full-text available
The aim of this study was to determine the level of infection of Ixodes ricinus ticks with pathogens (Borrelia spp., Rickettsia spp., and Anaplasma spp.) collected from Lacerta agilis and Zootoca vivipara lizards in the urban areas of Wrocław (SW Poland). The study was carried out in July-August 2020. Lizards were caught by a noose attached to a po...
Article
Full-text available
Ichthyosaurs were a successful group of marine reptiles with an extensive fossil record and a wide geographic distribution. Many of their most spectacular fossils come from the Lower Jurassic deposits of the Posidonia Shale in southwestern Germany. The most common ichthyosaur genus from this unit is Stenopterygius. Two ichthyosaur specimens from th...
Article
Full-text available
Snakes have a highly modified feeding apparatus. However, its associated musculature is often poorly known. In order to study variation in the cephalic musculature, we dissected specimens representing 28 snake species belonging to the New World clade Lampropeltini and their Old World relatives. The observed variation was analysed using a phylogenet...
Article
Gekkotans are one of the major clades of squamate reptiles. As one of the earliest-diverging lineages, they are crucial in studying deep-level squamate phylogeny and evolution. Developmental studies can shed light on the origin of many important morphological characters, yet our knowledge of cranial development in gekkotans is very incomplete. Here...
Article
Full-text available
The blue-spotted phenotype in a slow worm can be considered as an alternative colour morph or a secondary sexual characteristic. This phenotype is known to entail an elevated predation risk; thus, its continuous presence in a population must be balanced by additional and positive fitness consequences. In this study, we show that blue-spotted males...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Despite the long history of studies on the skeletal development in squamates, many groups of these hyperdiverse clade are still understudied. One of such groups are the gekkotans, a species-rich clade of mostly nocturnal lizards, encompassing limbless and fully-legged, terrestrial and arboreal species. This clade occupies also a crucial position in...
Article
Full-text available
We present data on the population structure, body size variations and allometric growth patterns for a common lizard (Zootoca vivipara) population from Southwestern Poland. We measured 339 lizards (89 males, 75 females, 63 subadults and 111 juveniles). The sex ratio did not differ from 1:1; however, we recorded intra-seasonal variations. There was...
Article
Full-text available
Ecosystem engineering is among the most important factors shaping ecosystems; however, it remains largely unstudied. Here, we present observations on three lizard species, the common lizard Zootoca vivipara, the sand lizard Lacerta agilis, and the slow worm Anguis fragilis, which use habitats created by the great capricorn beetle, Cerambyx cerdo. T...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract Under incomplete reproductive isolation, secondary contact of diverged allopatric lineages may lead to the formation of hybrid zones that allow to study recombinants over several generations as excellent systems of genomic interactions resulting from the evolutionary forces acting on certain genes and phenotypes. Hybrid phenotypes may eith...
Article
Full-text available
Simple Summary There are still many unknowns in the development of the skeleton in birds. Traditionally, the neck vertebrae were considered to be the first ossifying elements in the spine. Later studies have shown that this is not always the case. In some species, the thoracic vertebrae ossify even before them. Evolutionary analyses indicate that a...
Conference Paper
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Embryonic development of the skeleton in the parthenogenetic mourning gecko (Lepidodactylus lugubris): evolutionary implications
Conference Paper
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Road Mortality of amphibians and reptiles in Ruda Milicka (SW Poland)
Conference Paper
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Lizard use the galleries of capricorn beetle larvae.
Conference Paper
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The role of lizards as hosts of ticks (Ixodida) in southwestern Poland
Conference Paper
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Monks as traps for small vertebrates
Article
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Despite the long history of embryological studies of squamates, many groups of this huge clade have received only limited attention. One such understudied group is the anguimorphs, a clade comprising morphologically and ecologically very diverse lizards. We describe several stages of embryonic development of Anguis fragilis, a limbless, viviparous...
Article
Full-text available
Background Snakes exhibit sexual dimorphism in both head size and shape. Such differences are often attributed to different reproductive roles and feeding habits. We aim to investigate how sexual dimorphism is displayed in the highly specialised fish-egg-eating snake, Aipysurus eydouxii , by analysing two complementary features: body size and skull...
Article
Full-text available
Although the development of the avian skeleton has attracted considerable attention, most of the studies have been concentrated on the embryonic period, while studies on the postnatal period are rare. We studied the postnatal development of the skeleton in two phylogenetically distant birds, an altricial passerine Acrocephalus scirpaceus and a semi...
Article
Full-text available
Environment and lifestyle induce substantial variation in the mechanisms of locomotion in vertebrates. A spectrum of adaptations related to locomotion is also present in limbless taxa, especially snakes, which have radiated successfully into a wide range of habitats. The majority of studies concerning habitat-driven variation in locomotor mechanism...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The skull has played a crucial role in studying reptile evolution, systematics and palaeontology. In recent years, our knowledge about the cranial osteology of many European lacertids has improved significantly. Despite that, the data on the skull osteology are still very scarce for many lizards. One example is Podarcis – the most species-rich genu...
Conference Paper
Sexual dimorphism in size and shape is widespread among squamate reptiles. However, allometric trajectories underlying such differences remain largely unstudied in several lineages. The sea krait Laticauda colubrina exhibits a very clear sexual dimorphism in body size, with females being the larger sex. Also, females are reported to have relatively...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Our knowledge of the ossification sequences in extant birds is based primarily on the embryonic period. However, while some bones are known to ossify or fuse to other bones only after hatching, studies of the skeletal development in the posthatch period are rare and usually concerned with precocial species such as galliforms. We therefore compared...
Article
Full-text available
Niche engineering is considered one of the most important interspecific interactions that shape ecosystems, but this kind of interaction network has not been sufficiently studied so far. Here we present the first observation of grass snake Natrixnatrix in the galleries of Cerambyxcerdo . We recorded three grass snake individuals basking and hiding...
Article
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Johann Ludwig Christian Gravenhorst’s herpetological collection at the Museum of Natural History, University of Wrocław included numerous important specimens of amphibians and reptiles. The majority, if not the entirety, of this collection has long been thought to be lost. However, we were able to rediscover some type specimens of lizards. The redi...
Article
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The European adder Vipera berus (Linnaues 1758) is a species with unknown population trends in Poland, while in Europe it has been declining over the last decades. The lack of even most basic research on this species in Poland is most likely caused by the fact that safe and non-invasive methods of monitoring, which do not require capturing animals,...
Article
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The lake minnow Eupallasella percnurus is distributed throughout a vast area that includes most of Europe and northern Asia and displays a wide range of morphological variation, which resulted in five distinguished subspecies. There are no previous conclusive morphometric analyses of samples from different parts of the distribution area. This paper...
Article
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Palatal dentition in lizards is incompletely known, especially data on its variability are scarce. We studied variation in the number of pterygoid teeth in three species of Podarcis, a species-rich genus of lacertid lizards: terrestrial, P. siculus and saxicolous, P. erhardii and P. cretensis. In contrast to some previous studies, we found no sexua...
Article
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Background. Lepidosaurs, a group including rhynchocephalians and squamates, are one of the major clades of extant vertebrates. Although there has been extensive phylogenetic work on this clade, its interrelationships are a matter of debate. Morphological and molecular data suggest very different relationships within squamates. Despite this, relativ...
Data
Cladistic data matrix generated by continuous analysis
Data
Ancestral state reconstructions on molecular phylogeny using continuous data
Data
Ancestral state reconstructions on morphological phylogeny using event-paired characters
Data
Event-pair character state transformations Molecular phylogeny, ordered characters.
Data
Total relative change of each event from Table S1
Data
Event-pair character state transformations Morphological phylogeny, ordered characters.
Data
Event-pair character state transformations Morphological phylogeny, unordered characters.
Data
Total relative change of each event from Table S7
Data
Event-pair character state transformations Molecular phylogeny, unordered characters.
Data
Confidence intervals for event-pair cracking
Data
Cladistic data matrix generated by event-pairing
Data
Ancestral state reconstructions on morphological phylogeny using continuous data
Data
Total relative change of each event from Table S5
Data
Ancestral state reconstructions on molecular phylogeny using event-paired characters
Data
Total relative change of each event from Table S3
Article
Full-text available
Sand lizards (Lacerta agilis) exhibit a clear pattern of sexual dimorphism, both in coloration and body proportions, where males have larger heads and are longer-legged at a given snout-to-vent length (SVL). In this study we analyse allometry of skull growth with SVL and skull length (SL) as references. The sand lizard skull is basically sexually s...
Article
Full-text available
The Eurasian minnow Phoxinus phoxinus is widely distributed across most of Europe and northern Asia. It displays considerable morphological diversity and variable colouration. Despite this it is still believed that its whole distribution holds only one monotypic species. There are no previous conclusive morphometric analyses of samples from differe...
Article
Full-text available
This study was conducted to investigate allometry of head growth patterns in the grass snake (Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758)). Although male and female grass snakes differ in relative head size, their head growth patterns follow similar trajectories. The sexual differences are roughly constant during ontogeny. Most head dimensions grow with negativ...
Article
Full-text available
The presumed lost holotype of Liolaemus lemniscatus Gravenhorst, 1838 has been found at the Museum of Natural History of the University of Wrocław and identified by the individual pattern of head scales which matches Gravenhorst's drawing. The first detailed description of this specimen is provided.
Article
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How Precise are Size-Based Age Estimations in the Sand Lizard ( Lacerta Agilis )? Reptiles show a positive correlation between age and body size and it is common practice to infer the age of an animal from its size. However, the growth rate often differs between individuals, thus such practice may lead to false conclusions. Because age of an animal...
Article
Full-text available
For many years, the creationist movement in Poland was so marginal that the term “creationism” and its foundations were largely unknown within society. Nevertheless, at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, the country underwent rapid political, economic, and sociological transformation. As part of the reaction, many ideas previously cen...
Article
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Lectiones & Acroases Philosophicae III (2010) B a r t o s z B o r c z y k Uniwersytet Wrocławski KORZENIE WSPÓŁCZESNEGO ANTYEWOLUCJONIZMU / The Roots of Modern Anti-evolutionism: In the first part of the paper I am presenting a short introduction to the conflict between materialistic science and religious beliefs. The three most popular attempts to...
Chapter
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Article
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Sexual dimorphism is widespread in animals, including snakes, and has important implication in both ecology and behaviour. I studied a grass snake (Natrix natrix) population from "Stawy Milickie" nature reserve. Mean snout-vent length (SVL) for females was significantly greater than SVL for males, but males had proportionally longer tails. However,...

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