Functional and physiological divergence in lizards

During the visit, the working team performed fieldwork, during which we captured 40 adult specimens of three different lizard species (i.e. Podarcis carbonelli, P. vaucheri and Tarentola mauritanica). These individuals where then taken to the laboratory, where we performed ecophysiological and functional performance experiments, we quantified the morphology of each individual and we took high resolution photographs and samples to study parasite load. The ecophysiological experiments consisted in studying the preferred body temperature of T. mauritanica in thermal gradients, as well as water loss rates in sealed chambers, for 12h per day. For all the species studied, we also quantified bite force using a force gauge and performed running trials to quantify locomotor performance.