SEXUAL SELECTION AND NATURAL SELECTION ON THE SOCIAL SIGNALS OF GLIDING LIZARDS

This talk focuses on the evolutionary ecology of lizards of the genus Draco - known as ‘gliding lizards’ due to their retractable gliding membranes. They communicate with extendable throat- fans called dewlaps, which are strikingly coloured and diverse among species. I look at the importance of dewlap signal design for detection and recognition in Draco melanopogon, by presenting free-living lizards with robots displaying dewlaps of different designs, assess the relationships between the dewlap components (e.g. colour and size) and aspects of their environment, and examine the effects of predation and visual ecology on display colouration and behaviour.

Danielle Klomp is a Research Fellow visiting CIBIO-InBIO for six months to study the colour polymorphic Podarcis muralis with Miguel Carretero and Guillem Perez i de Lazuna. She completed her PhD in 2016 under Terry Ord, in the Evolution & Ecology Research Centre at UNSW, and Devi Stuart-Fox at the University of Melbourne, Australia, and recently completed a postdoc at the National University of Singapore, under Daiqin Li. To date, Danielle’s research has focused on behavioural and visual ecology of gliding lizards and jumping spiders.

[Host: Miguel A. Carretero, Functional Biodiversity]

Image credits: Danielle Klomp