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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (276)
Self- and individual discrimination are needed to maintain social relationships. However the extent of precision of these abilities may depend on the social strategy of each individual, which may vary with ontogeny. Many animals use chemical cues to discriminate conspecifics. For example, many lizards use femoral gland secretions, which are compose...
The efficacy of sexual signals in communication is often maximized under specific environmental conditions. Anthropic alterations of these conditions might, thus, negatively affect communication during reproductive behavior. In fossorial animals, inhabiting visually restricted environments, chemical senses are very important. We examined whether cl...
Selecting a good mate is a decision with important fitness consequences. For this reason, mate choice has promoted the evolution of sexual ornaments signaling the quality of an individual. In fossorial animals, inhabiting visually restricted underground environments, chemical senses should be very important for mate choice. We examined whether sexu...
Males typically display sexual signals that females use for mating. Male signals usually indicate some aspect of individual quality, which is often heritable. Hence, females increase their fitness by choosing the most attractive males. These signals are often honest because they are expensive to produce or maintain, so the male's investment in the...
Chemosensory communication in lizards may be based on multiple compounds coming from multiple sources. Both secretions from external epidermal glands, and internal cloacal glands and feces are known to convey information (sex, familiarity, body size, etc.) for conspecifics. However, although some compounds in femoral gland secretions have been char...
Background
Many animals rely on chemical cues for intraspecific communication. This is especially important in fossorial animals because visual restrictions of the underground environment limit the opportunities for visual communication. Previous experiments showed the ability of the amphisbaenian Trogonophis wiegmanni to discriminate between sever...
Conspecific cues often provide social information on habitat quality that is considered when deciding to settle at a specific site. The type of sensory cues useful for this will depend on the environment. For amphisbaenians, reptiles adapted to an underground life with highly reduced sight, chemoreception is especially useful to recognize conspecif...
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) is a pesticide that was commonly used for decades worldwide. The use of DDT was banned decades ago in Europe due to its high toxicity and persistence in the environment, bioaccumulation in living organisms and biomagnification through food webs. However, monitoring using both invasive and non‐invasive methods h...
Melanin is a fundamental pigment in animal coloration as it is involved in many different adaptive functions such as signaling or thermoregulation. Two forms of melanin are known to produce different colors (eumelanin: black; pheomelanin: yellow or brown). Here, we explored whether there were intersexual differences and/or size-related changes in m...
Investing in the current reproduction requires diverting energy resources from other metabolic functions, which may compromise future reproduction and lifespan. To solve this trade-off, an individual may consider its labile state to decide how much to invest in current reproduction. We tested experimentally whether the “state quality” of male rock...
To understand the spread of parasite and the persistence of infection in an ecological environment, it is essential to investigate their transmission possibilities. Vertical transmission of pathogens from mother to offspring is a fundamental opportunity, notwithstanding a relatively under-researched topic, especially in wildlife animals. We studied...
The uropygial gland of birds produces an oily secretion with different functions, mainly related to plumage protection. In addition, the volatile compounds of this secretion may act as chemical signals that provide information to conspecifics, but it is also possible that those compounds may further attract hematophagous insect vectors such as thos...
When selecting optimal habitats, animals should rely on detecting environmental cues that indicate the suitability of a given site. In fossorial animals, restrictions of the underground environment might limit the opportunities for habitat selection. However, field observations of some fossorial amphisbaenian reptiles indicate that microhabitat occ...
Kin recognition is a phenomenon with an important function in maintaining cohesive social groups in animals. Several studies have examined parent–offspring recognition in species with direct parental care. Few studies have, however, explored parent–offspring recognition in animals that, at best, only show apparent indirect parental care, such as so...
Animals often face situations that require quantity discrimination for decision-making. Differentiating between more and less amounts might be adaptative in different contexts such as in social relationships, navigation, or foraging. However, feeding close to conspecifics might change foraging behavior decisions due to changes in predation risk per...
Aggression is one of the most frequently studied behavioural traits across a wide range of taxa; however, most studies evaluate aggressive behaviour in a social context, in which aggressive interactions between conspecifics are motivated by resource control (offensive or social aggression). However, in an antipredator context, the primary role of a...
Females often have chromatic patterns that differ from those of males. The evolution and function of female coloration is less
known than those of males. Female ornaments can result from non-adaptive intersexual genetic correlation, but they may also
signal female quality, health state, or potential fecundity. We examined whether the spectral chara...
Maintaining social relationships depends on the ability to recognize partners or group members against other individuals. This is especially important in animals with relatively stable social groups. The amphisbaenian Trogonophis wiegmanni is a semi blind fossorial reptile that spends its entire life underground where it interacts with mates and so...
Mechanisms affecting consistent interindividual behavioral variation (i.e., animal personality) are of wide scientific interest. In poikilotherms, ambient temperature is one of the most important environmental factors with a direct link to a variety of fitness‐related traits. Recent empirical evidence suggests that individual differences in boldnes...
Parasites can manipulate their hosts to increase their transmission success. Avian malaria parasites (Plasmodium) are thought to alter the cues such as host odour, used by host-seeking mosquitoes. Bird odour is affected by secretions from the uropygial gland and may play a role in modulating vector-host interactions. We tested the hypothesis that m...
Individual recognition (IR) plays an important role in modulating social
interactions of several animal species. IR may work at two fundamental
levels: at class-level (CIR), if it allows group membership identification (e.g.
familiar/unfamiliar), or at individual-level (true IR; TIR), if it allows uniquely
recognizing conspecifics. Direct and indir...
One way that maternal effects may benefit the offspring is by informing them about the characteristics of the environment. Through gestation, environmentally induced maternal effects might promote in the offspring-specific behavioral responses like dispersal or residence according to their new habitat characteristics. Females of the Carpetan rock l...
Differences in both stable and labile state variables are known to affect the emergence and maintenance of consistent interindividual behavioral variation (animal personality or behavioral syndrome), especially when experienced early in life. Variation in environmental conditions experienced by gestating mothers (viz. nongenetic maternal effects) i...
Chemical communication plays an essential role in several social and reproductive behaviors of many animals. In lizards, the main sources of semiochemicals are femoral or pre‐anal gland secretions and feces. In male lizards Psammodromus algirus, there are age‐related differences in the chemical composition of femoral gland secretions and in the rep...
Female Carpetan rock lizards (Iberolacerta cyreni) might assess the quality of males from their chemical signals. Females select areas scent marked by males with secretions containing high proportions of provitamin D to ensure mating with high-quality males. However, an alternative explanation might be that females are not choosing a mate, but that...
[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0211686.].
Lipophilic compounds found in P. liolepis femoral pore secretions from two populations in the Midi-Pyrenees.
(DOC)
Widespread species often show extensive phenotypic variation due to the contrasting abiotic and biotic factors that shape selective pressures in different environments. In this context, the gradual and predictable patterns of variation in climatic and environmental conditions found in mountain areas offer a great opportunity to explore intraspecifi...
Factor loadings for the PCA on ventral coloration of Podarcis liolepis lizards.
(DOCX)
Factor scores for the PCA on ventral coloration of Podarcis liolepis lizards.
(DOCX)
Summary statistics (mean + SE) for ventral and dorsal coloration in P. liolepis lizards.
(DOCX)
Factor scores for the PCA on dorsal coloration of Podarcis liolepis lizards.
(DOCX)
Lipophilic compounds found in P. liolepis femoral pore secretions from two populations in the Midi-Pyrenees.
(DOCX)
GenBank accesión number for the genetic samples used in this study.
PL codes refer to P.liolepis individuals sampled in the Midi-Pyrenees. Med1 and Bur2 (from Medinaceli and Burgos, respectively) and MT1 (P. muralis) are sequences obtained from GenBank.
(DOCX)
Factor loadings for the PCA on dorsal coloration of Podarcis liolepis lizards.
(DOCX)
Las señales sexuales dependientes de la condición han sido ampliamente estudiadas en el contexto de la comunicación animal. Muchos de estos estudios asumen que los machos con señales más atractivas serán los que más se reproduzcan, pero esto raramente se ha comprobado. Los machos de la lagartija carpetana (Iberolacerta cyreni) atraen a las hembras...
Males of many species produce chemical signals to attract females to their territories. In some cases, the presence and abundance of some compounds in the chemical signals depend on the availability of particular food resources in the environment. Since females are attracted by males' scents, it would be likely that females were just looking for th...
Los costes de producción de las señales sexuales de los machos, permiten que las hembras las consideren señales honestas indicadoras de la condición y la calidad del macho. En la lagartija carpetana (Iberolacerta cyreni), las características de las señales químicas (secreciones femorales) de los machos constituyen una señal honesta en el contexto d...
Sexual signals that males produce to attract females may be honest if they are costly and dependent on the condition and quality of the male. In the Carpetan rock lizard (Iberolacerta cyreni), the characteristics of males' chemical signals (femoral secretions) may constitute an honest signal in the context of female mate choice. Those males able of...
Knowledge about chemical communication in some vertebrates is still relatively limited. Squamates are a glaring example of this, even when recent evidences indicate that scents are involved in social and sexual interactions. In lizards, where our understanding of chemical communication has considerably progressed in the last few years, many questio...
Las señales sexuales químicas (secreciones femorales) usadas para marcar sustratos por los machos de lagartija carpetana (Iberolacerta cyreni) parecen tener un papel importante en la elección de pareja. Las hembras parecen evaluar la calidad de un macho a partir de las proporciones de dos formas de la provitamina D (cholesta-5,7-dien-3-ol y ergoste...
Communicative traits are strikingly diverse and may vary among populations of the same species. Within a population, these traits may also display seasonal variation. Chemical signals play a key role in the communication of many taxa. However, we still know far too little about chemical communication in some vertebrate groups. In lizards, only a fe...
Honesty of sexual signals demands a link between the signal and fitness of the signalers, which can be based on the costs of the signal and trade-offs between signal development and essential physiological functions, such as the immune defense or the antioxidant system. We experimentally challenged the immune system of male lizards Lacerta schreibe...
Chemical communication plays a central role in social, sexual and ecological interactions among animals. However, the macroevolutionary diversification of traits responsible for chemical signaling remains fundamentally unknown. Most research investigating evolutionary diversification of glands responsible for the production of chemical signals has...
Identifying the factors that underlie signal divergences remains challenging in studies of animal communication. Regarding the chemical signalling, different compounds can be found in some species but be absent in others. We hypothesized that if the costs that are associated with the expression of some compounds are too high, their presence in the...
Growth rates have complex sources and may determine adult body size in organisms with indeterminate growth. Thus, the interpretation of interpopulation differences in body size along geographical gradients requires the examination of growth and to distinguish between the proximal and ultimate causes of it. Several studies support a link between gro...
Blood parasites such as haemogregarines and haemosporidians have been identified in almost all groups of vertebrates and may cause serious damages to their hosts. However, very little is known about biodiversity of these parasites and their effects on some groups of reptiles such as terrapins. Moreover, the information on virulence from blood paras...
Chemical signals used in intraspecific communication are expected to evolve or to show phenotipic plasticity to maximize efficacy in the climatic conditions of a given environment. Elevational environmental gradients in mountains provide a good opportunity to test this hypothesis by examining variation in characteristics of signals in species found...
Sound production plays a key role in a broad range of animal interactions among both conspecifics and heterospecifics.Yet less attention has been paid to acoustic communication in reptiles than to other sensorial modalities. Within lacertidae, the presence or absence of vocal behavior has been referred as a distinctive trait between their two subfa...
Important part of the multivariate selection shaping social and interspecific interactions among and within animal species emerges from communication. Therefore, understanding the diversification of signals for animal communication is a central endeavor in evolutionary biology. Over the last decade, the rapid development of phylogenetic approaches...
It has been proposed recently that labile state variables (e.g. energy reserves) can have a key role in the development and maintenance of consistent between-individual behavioural variation (i.e. animal personality) within population. In male Carpetan rock lizards (Iberolacerta cyreni), the provitamin D3 component of femoral gland secretion acts a...
Interpopulational variation in sexual signals may lead to premating reproductive isolation and eventually may result in speciation. We explored the role of chemical cues secreted by the femoral glands of male lizards Psammdoromus algirus in chemosensory recognition between two distinct genetic lineages from Central Spain. We hypothesized that if th...
Here, we report the results of a large-scale PCR survey on the prevalence and diversity of adenoviruses (AdVs) in samples, collected randomly from free-living reptiles. On the territories of the Guadarrama Mountains National Park in Central Spain and of the Chafarinas Islands in North Africa, cloacal swabs were taken from 318 specimens of eight nat...
Many lizards use femoral gland secretions in intraspecific chemical communication, but specific compounds have been identified in only a few species. Chemical composition of secretions may depend on phylogeny, but it may also evolve to maximize efficacy of signals in a given environment. In deserts, the extreme dry and hot environmental conditions...
Chemical signals play an important role in intraspecific communication and social organization of many animals, but they also may be useful in interspecific recognition. In lizards, chemical signals are often contained in femoral gland secretions, of which composition may vary between species and populations. This may be especially important in rec...
Identifying evolutionary and developmental mechanisms underlying consistent between-individual differences in behaviour is the main goal in ‘animal personality studies’. Here, we explored whether activity and risktaking varied consistently between individuals and correlated to various – potentially fitness linked – male traits in Carpetan rock liza...
Melanin-based coloration reflects mostly social status and dominance in males of several species. However, the relation of melanism with other suites of behavioral traits has received less attention. Here, we examined whether the melanic coloration of the shell of male Spanish terrapins Mauremys leprosa was related to several behavioral patterns. T...
Soil alteration is one of the major threats in arid environments, which can have serious consequences for soil biodiversity. However, the ecology of fossorial animals is poorly understood and their low conspicuousness may lead researchers and managers to overlook potential conservation problems. Amphisbaenians are fossorial reptiles and, because of...
Sex-specific color polymorphisms have been extensively documented in many different taxa. When polymorphism in color pattern is restricted to females the condition is known as female-limited pattern polymorphism (FPP) which has been less commonly addressed in vertebrates. FPP is present in several lizards species but most research on lizards has fo...
Many lizards use femoral gland secretions in reliable intraspeci fi c communication. Basedon mass spectra, obtained by GC e MS, we found 57 lipophilic compounds in femoral secretionsof males and females of El Hierro giant lizards, Gallotia simonyi (fam. Lacertidae).Compounds included steroids (mainly cholesterol) and fatty acids ranging between n -...
Antipredator escape behaviour varies with several well-established sources of variation ranging from the physical environment to reproductive status. However, the relative roles of these sources are rarely assessed together. We measured (i) the distance to the nearest refuge that Schreiber’s green lizards, Lacerta schreiberi, maintained before an a...
Many animals can recognize chemical cues of predators
and show defensive responses, but antipredatory behavior
can be costly and should be modulated depending on the
level of risk posed by each predatory species. Recognition
ability may be innate, but it is not clear whether there might
also be local adaptation to predation pressure levels or some...
Sexual signals used in intraspecific communication are expected to evolve to maximize efficacy under a given climatic condition. Thus, chemical secretions of lizards might evolve in the evolutionary time to ensure that signals are perfectly tuned to local humidity and temperature conditions affecting their volatility and therefore their persistence...
In most cases, prey animals do not escape randomly, but toward a refuge such as a rock crevice, burrow, tree, or a patch of thick vegetation. Safer habitats where animals restrict most of their activity to avoid exposure to potential predators found in other places are often called refuges or refugia (e.g., Werner et al. 1983). That is not our mean...
When a predator attacks, prey are faced with a series of 'if', 'when' and 'how' escape decisions – these critical questions are the foci of this book. Cooper and Blumstein bring together a balance of theory and empirical research to summarise over fifty years of scattered research and benchmark current thinking in the rapidly expanding literature o...
The red-eared slider, Trachemys scripta elegans, is a worldwide invasive species, currently introduced in most freshwater habitats as a consequence of the exotic pet trade. In the Iberian Peninsula, this American turtle is competing and displacing the Iberian turtles, Emys orbicularis and Mauremys leprosa. Recent studies have pointed out to diverse...
The two-fingered skink, Chalcides mauritanicus, is a fossorial species from North Africa, where it has only been found at a few localities in sandy sea shores. Virtually nothing is known about its ecology. For the first time, we report the occurrence of an apparently large and well-preserved population of C. mauritanicus at the Chafarinas Islands (...
Many lizards have diverse glands that produce chemosignals used in intraspecific communication and that can have reproductive consequences. For example, information in chemosignals of male lizards can be used in intrasexual competition to identify and assess the fighting potential or dominance status of rival males either indirectly through territo...
The interplay between ecological conditions and life histories has been widely acknowledged in vertebrates, particularly in lizards. Environmental conditions may exert different selective pressures and produce divergent phenotypes even in geographically and genetically close populations. The Iberian wall lizard, constitutes a perfect model organism...