Levi N Gray

Arizona State University West

A primary challenge for modern phylogeography is understanding how ecology and geography, both contemporary and historical, shape the spatial distribution and evolutionary histories of species. Phylogeographic patterns are the result of many factors, including geology, climate, habitat, colonization history, and lineage‐specific constraints. Assess...

Sexually selected traits can be expected to increase in importance when the period of sexual behavior is constrained, such as in seasonally restricted breeders. Anolis lizard male dewlaps are classic examples of multifaceted signaling traits, with demonstrated intraspecific reproductive function reflected in courtship behavior. Fitch and Hillis fou...

Significance Population structure and speciation are shaped by a combination of biotic and abiotic factors. The tiger salamander complex has been considered a key group in which life history variation has led to a rapid rate of speciation, driven in large part by the evolution of obligate paedomorphosis—a condition in which adults maintain an aquat...

Anolis lizards (anoles) are textbook study organisms in evolution and ecology. Although several topics in evolutionary biology have been elucidated by the study of anoles, progress in some areas has been hampered by limited phylogenetic information on this group. Here we present a phylogenetic analysis of all 379 extant species of Anolis, with new...

Dietary decisions by predators can affect prey abundance and overall food web dynamics. Many predators do not forage on the same prey at the same frequency throughout their lives. Ontogenetic shifts in prey preference are not, however, often accounted for when modeling food web relationships, despite growing literature that suggests that stage spec...

North American Thamnophiini (gartersnakes, watersnakes, brownsnakes, and swampsnakes) are an ecologically and phenotypically diverse temperate clade of snakes representing 61 species across 10 genera. In this study, we estimate phylogenetic trees using ∼3,700 ultraconserved elements (UCEs) for 76 specimens representing 75% of all Thamnophiini speci...

Integral projection models (IPMs) can estimate the population dynamics of species for which both discrete life stages and continuous variables influence demographic rates. Stochastic IPMs for imperiled species, in turn, can facilitate population viability analyses (PVAs) to guide conservation decision‐making. Biphasic amphibians are globally distri...

The North American tiger salamander species complex, including its flagship species the axolotl, has long been a source of biological fascination. The complex exhibits a wide range of variation in developmental life history strategies, including populations and individuals that undergo metamorphosis and those able to forego metamorphosis and retain...

A bstract The North American tiger salamander species complex, including its best-known species, the Mexican axolotl, has long been a source of biological fascination. The complex exhibits a wide range of variation in developmental life history strategies, including populations and individuals that undergo metamorphosis, those able to forego metamo...

Sexually selected traits can be expected to increase in importance when the period of sexual behavior is constrained, such as in seasonally restricted breeders. Anolis lizard male dewlaps are classic examples of multifaceted signaling traits, with demonstrated reproductive function reflected in courtship behavior. Fitch and Hillis found a correlati...

Within the lizard genus Anolis, color variation in the dewlap, an important signaling trait, can indicate local adaptation or divergence between populations. Most research on anole dewlaps has taken aim at males rather than females. Despite several publications of unrelated lizard genera with links between female signal color polymorphisms and fecu...

Adaptive radiation is a widely recognized pattern of evolution wherein substantial phenotypic change accompanies rapid speciation. Adaptive radiation may be triggered by environmental opportunities resulting from dispersal to new areas or via the evolution of traits, called key innovations, that allow for invasion of new niches. Species sampling is...

The broad-scale geographic distribution of many amphibians and non-avian reptiles is incompletely known, which negatively affects a wide range of scientific disciplines. This knowledge deficiency, however, translates to opportunity. In regions where the geographic ranges of many species are poorly known, such as Mesoamerica, novel distributional da...

We describe a new species of semiaquatic Anolis (A. purpuronectes) from the Chimalapas region of eastern Oaxaca and adjacent Veracruz, Mexico, and investigate its phylogenetic relationships with the closely related species A. barkeri to which the populations under investigation have previously been assigned to. Anolis barkeri and the new species ap...

In this study, based on a morphological analysis, the resurrection of the name Anolis ustus Cope 1864, is proposed for populations from the Yucatán Peninsula (Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo, Mexico, and Belize), formerly referred as A. sericeus Hallowell, 1856. Anolis ustus differs from A. sericeus by its mean snout-vent length and number of g...

In this study, based on a morphological analysis, the resurrection of the name Anolis ustus Cope 1864, is proposed for populations from the Yucatán Peninsula (Campeche, Yucatán, and Quintana Roo, Mexico, and Belize), formerly referred as A. sericeus Hallowell, 1856. Anolis ustus differs from A. sericeus by its mean snout-vent length and number of g...

We redescribe the ecologically unusual lizard Anolis alvarezdeltoroi, previously known from a single specimen, based on newly collected and previously unidentified preserved specimens from the type-locality region in Chiapas, as well as new localities in Veracruz and Oaxaca. We include information on color, morphological variation, and natural hist...

We increase information on the morphological variation of Anolis duellmani based on 31 specimens collected since the species was described. We also provide some observations on the natural history of the species. Our sample showed greater variation in diagnostic characters than originally recorded, but the expanded range of characters still diagnos...

Delayed life history effects (DLHEs) occur when fitness in one life stage affects fitness in subsequent life stages. Given their biphasic life cycle, pond-breeding amphibians provide a natural system for studying DLHEs, although these effects are not restricted to species with biphasic life histories. In this study, we used multiple mark-recapture...

We studied type material and freshly collected topotypical specimens to assess the taxonomic status of five names associated with species of Mexican Anolis. We find A. schmidti to be a junior synonym of A. nebulosus, A. breedlovei to be a junior synonym of A. cuprinus, A. polyrhachis to be a junior synonym of A. rubiginosus, A. simmonsi to be a jun...

Background/Question/Methods Delayed life history effects (DLHEs) occur when fitness in one life stage affects fitness in subsequent life stages. Given their biphasic lifecycle, pond-breeding amphibians provide a natural system for studying DLHEs. In this study, we use numerous mark-recapture techniques (visual implant alphanumeric tags, visual im...

Males of the three species of the Anolis laevis group, so-called proboscis anoles, display a remarkable appendage extending from the snout. All A. laevis group Anolis are poorly known and rarely collected. We redescribe Anolis proboscis based on the type specimen and male and female specimens we collected recently near the town of Mindo, Pichincha...

The anole lizard Anolis soinii was described from a single locality in northern Peru in 2008. We report the first records of A. soinii from southern Ecuador, Provincia Zamora-Chinchipe: Valladolid-Yangana road; Romerillos Alto; Estación Científica San Francisco; Zamora-Loja road; and Refugio de Vida Silvestre El Zarza. The Valladolid-Yangana road,...

Background/Question/Methods Due to their fossorial nature, it is difficult to follow the movements of individual Ambystomatid salamanders while they are in the terrestrial environment. Radio tags, which have been the most utilized method to date, are limited by their battery life, and thus only allow individuals to be tracked for a period of up to...

Although much of the theory on the success of invasive species has been geared at escape from specialist enemies, the impact of introduced generalist invertebrate herbivores on both native and introduced plant species has been underappreciated. The role of nocturnal invertebrate herbivores in structuring plant communities has been examined extensiv...