Natalin S. Vicente

Chemical cues play an important role in sexual recognition in several lizard species. Here, we investigated whether the neotropical lizard, Liolaemus pacha (Iguania: Liolaemidae) can discriminate between chemical information obtained from males or females. In addition, we also considered the effect of season (reproductive vs. post-reproductive) and...

Multimodal communication involves the use of signals and cues across two or more sensory modalities. The genus Liolaemus (Iguania: Liolaemidae) offers a great potential for studies on the ecology and evolution of multimodal communication, including visual and chemical signals. In this study, we analyzed the response of male and female Liolaemus pac...

Animal communication has a key role in animals and identifying the signals' function is crucial. Most lizards communicate with each other through visual signals with headbob displays, which are up-and-down movements of the head or the anterior part of the body. In the present work, I described and analysed the headbob displays of Liolaemus pacha li...

The decision of when and how to escape result crucial for animals because it can result in an interruption to contribute to their fitness. In the present study, we analysed whether speed attack, sex and type of refuge influenced the flight initiation distance (FID) and the closest refuge distance (CRD) in Liolaemus pacha lizards. We also compared t...

The growing number of gender studies encourages more refined analyzes and greater conceptualization of the underlying processes of gender gap in science. In Herpetology, previous studies have described gender disparities and a scrutiny of individual interactions may help revealing the mechanisms modelling the global pattern. In this contribution we...

Headbobbing represents one of the primary sources of communication in Iguanian lizards. Here, we describe and analyze for the first time the form and structure of the headbob display in a species of the Phymaturus genus, and compare it across sexes, social contexts, and with other species of its family. We video-recorded Phymaturus palluma adult li...

Women in scientific fields have achieved meaningful gains in terms of participation, and they even reached gender parity in Argentina. However, in spite of several documented attempts to close the gender gap, inequalities still remain in different academic areas. Considering that disciplines have developed under different historical contexts and in...

Las desigualdades de género en ciencia son globalmente conocidas. Esto se evidencia principalmente en la baja representatividad y visibilidad de las mujeres. En este trabajo, brindamos información sobre el estado de estos tópicos en la Asociación Herpetológica Argentina (AHA), una de las sociedades herpetológicas más antiguas de Sudamérica. Para el...

Lizards show a great variety of visual displays. Among them, arm-waving is a behaviour that has received little attention and its role is still controversial. Here, I analyse the armwaves of Liolaemus pacha lizards in their natural habitat with the aim of determining their function. Arm-waving was performed by both sexes, usually with the ventral b...

Chemical self-recognition in Liolaemus pacha (Iguania: Liolaemidae) is influenced by season. ABSTRACT. Chemical signals play an important role in social and sexual recognition in several lizard species. Here, we investigated whether the lizard Liolaemus pacha can recognize their own chemical scents (i.e., self-recognition) from a control. In addit...

Signals used by animals to communicate with each other are intermediaries of important biological processes such as mate searching, reproduction, and conspecific recognition, among others. Communication in lizards mainly involves the use of visual and chemical signals. However, signals can be multimodal, being simultaneously perceived by two differ...

Visual communication is important in many lizard species. One conspicuous visual signal is the headbob display, which consists of a stereotyped up and down movement of the head and/or torso. We analysed male headbob displays in the neotropical lizard, Liolaemus pacha, in its natural environment. Our objectives were to describe and analyse the struc...

Parasites can significantly influence the health of the host by inhibiting important physiological and behavioral processes. Some factors like body size, age of host, sex, and season can influence parasite load in nature. Mites are ectoparasites that can occur in lizards, possibly having a negative impact on their host. Our goals were to identify t...

Presentamos un resumen de investigaciones realizadas en su mayoría durante la última déca-da por nuestro grupo, sobre comportamiento y ecología de lagartijas del género Liolaemus y Phymaturus de Argentina. Llevamos a cabo estudios sobre su comunicación, territorialidad, elección de pareja, función de la coloración nupcial en hembras, relación entre...

The knowledge about spatial preferences in animals represents the first stage to understand the interactions between the organisms and its environment. The sand dune lizard (Liolaemus multimaculatus) is a species highly adapted to live in the sand. The goal of this work was to study the habitat use in different moments/situation during its period o...