{"id":238,"date":"2020-08-05T11:53:26","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T15:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/?p=238"},"modified":"2020-08-05T11:53:26","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T15:53:26","slug":"hang-on-tight-how-hurricanes-cause-toe-pad-size-to-increase-in-lizards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/2020\/08\/05\/hang-on-tight-how-hurricanes-cause-toe-pad-size-to-increase-in-lizards\/","title":{"rendered":"Hang on tight: how hurricanes cause toe-pad size to increase in lizards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Raymond Looney<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Humans are naturally devastated by short-term weather events such as hurricanes, but the news tends to overlook the implications of these storms on natural flora and fauna in the devastated areas. If a changing climate is only going to intensify the impact and frequency of short-term climatic events like hurricanes, we need to find ways to adapt to our changing world or else we are toast. In September 2017, the West Indies and the Alantic coast were devastated by Hurricanes Irma and Maria. The two category five storms, brought with them winds upwards of 150 miles per hour, causing more than $65 billion in damages and caused an estimated death toll of 2,982 in Puerto Rico. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A visual representing the two study islands: Pine Cay and Water Cay, as well as the path of Hurricane\u2019s Maria and Irma and the vicinity of the islands (white dots) to the center of the storm. (Donihue et al. 2018). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In a paper published in Nature<\/em>\nin 2018, scientist Colin Donihue provided evidence for a species of anole\nlizards to have adapted due to two catastrophic short-term climate events,\nhurricane Maria, and hurricane Irma. Within a 6-week period, he found evidence\nthat surviving individuals developed stronger grips by selection for larger\ntoepads and forelimbs. This paper received a massive response as it is the\nfirst study to test how short-term climate events can cause long-term changes\nin native populations and cause immediate evolutionary shifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A. scriptus<\/em> photographed by Colin Donihue <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            Donihue and his team originally went\nto Turks and Caicos in order to study the impacts of an invasive rat on the\nendemic species of nearby islands (Pine Cay and Water Cay). In order to do\nthis, he was set to take baseline natural history data of Anolis scriptus <\/em>(A.\nscriptus<\/em>) like body length, toe pad size, forelimb, and hindlimb length.\nDonihue describes the progression of their research as simply \u201cbeing in the right\nplace at the right time\u201d, as right after they left the two islands were\nbattered by hurricane Maria and Irma within a two-week period. These two storms\ncaused immense damage to natural flora and fauna as well as human communities.\nIf these events have catastrophic effects on humans, one can only imagine the\ndamage that is put on natural biodiversity. The team initially had no plan to\nlook into the impact of hurricanes on selection, however, were given a rare\nopportunity to put a very important question to the test. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The toepads of A. scriptus<\/em> after hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated the study site (Donihue 2018). <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

            Three weeks after the effects of\nHurricane Maria, Donihue returned to Pine Cay and Water Cay to resurvey the\nislands for surviving lizards measured forelimb and toepad size to determine if\nthey had differed from their first visit not long ago. They looked for changes\nin toepad surface area, as an increase in this trait would indicate better\nclinging ability in A. scriptus.<\/em> To determine the significance of their\nresults, they questioned whether changes in toepad size of the surviving\nanoles\u2019 were random, or whether the change was explained by the catastrophic\nevents of the hurricanes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After  an extremely busy two months, the team found evidence for shifts in morphological traits that may have given the lizards a survival advantage during the catastrophic storms. Surviving lizards had significantly larger toepads and forelimb size than the ones originally measured. These results suggest that natural selection has operated to deliver a survival advantage to the individuals with characteristic that helped them to cling tighter to their environment during strong storms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The findings of this study are\nimperative to the future of studying climatic effects on natural biodiversity.\nMost of the studies coming out regarding a warming climate on ecosystem\nprocesses focus on long-term processes such as droughts and excessive warming\nand don\u2019t focus on short-term disturbances like hurricanes. Extreme climate\nevents are only going to increase in frequency and severity in the future and\nwe do not know how the implications of a rapidly warming climate will impact\nnot only humans but natural flora and fauna of the world. Normally we only hear\nthe negatives on climate change, however this study may give a positive view on\nhow some organisms are adapting in real time to our new reality. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Raymond Looney Humans are naturally devastated by short-term weather events such as hurricanes, but the news tends to overlook the implications of these storms on natural flora and fauna in the devastated areas. If a changing climate is only … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6012,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[643422],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-herpetology-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6012"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238\/revisions\/301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}