engleski

Behaviour of coexsiting lizards species, Podarcis siculus and Podarcis melisellensis, in a novel environment

The Italian wall lizard (Podarcis siculus) and the Dalmatian wall lizard (Podarcis melisellensis) are two lizard species that coexist in the eastern Adriatic, with their home ranges overlapping. The Italian wall lizard's ability to adapt to a variety of environmental conditions, as well as its effective population establishment, have made it a successful invasive species that has displaced native species, including the Dalmatian wall lizard. The study's goal was to determine behaviours of non- social context that may be associated with Italian wall lizard invasive potential and compare those behaviours to those of naturally occurring sympatric Dalmatian wall lizard. The study was conducted on 120 individuals caught in three different locations from Central Dalmatia, Croatia, where both species live in sympatry. The lizards were kept in a controlled laboratory environment and open field test was used for non-social behaviour testing. The measured variables were the number of tongue flicks, escape attempts, time spent in the centre of the open field, time spent moving, and distance traveled. According to our results, Italian wall lizards display more exploratory behaviour (spent more time moving), while Dalmatian wall lizards are bolder (spent more time in the centre of the arena). In addition, there were no significant differences in any of the variables measured between the sexes in this study.

Behavioral ecology

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