Abstract

ORTEGA-DE LA ROSA, Ricardo José; MORENO-ARIAS, Rafael Ángel  and  MARTINEZ-HERNANDEZ, Neis José. Approach to the ecological structuring of the community of Anolis Daudin lizards, 1802 (Squamata: Dactyloidae) from the dry forests of Montes de María in the Colombian Caribbean. Bol. Cient. Mus. Hist. Nat. Univ. Caldas [online]. 2023, vol.27, n.1, pp.113-129.  Epub Sep 18, 2023. ISSN 0123-3068.  https://doi.org/10.17151/bccm.2023.27.1.8.

In Tropical Dry Forests (TDF), Anolis lizards are the group that shows the highest values of abundance and diversity in some types of habitats. However, information and knowledge about this group and its ecological interactions are still scarce. In this study, information was recorded on the use of spatial and food resources of five species of these lizards in order to perform a unified analysis of niche overlap in three ground cover types (riparian forest, forest int erior, and open vegetation) in the village of La Flecha, San Jacinto, Bolívar. It was found that in both seasons, dry and rainy, the values of food overlap were lower than those for spatial resources. This result agrees with the hypothesis of niche complementarity, and it could indicate that, in both climatic seasons, the limiting resources for the assembly of Anolis in the study area would be food resources. Spatial overlap values by pairs of species indicated that A. auratus was statistically different in the use of spatial resources compared to other species. In both climatic seasons, the pair of species that presented the highest overlap values for both spatial and food resources were A. gaigei and A. gr. fuscoauratus. The results of this research show that the coexistence strategies exhibited by Anolis species are important for structuring this assembly in the TDF in the Montes de María, Bolívar, Colombian Caribbean.

Keywords : Anolis; BST; coexistence; niche overlap; use of resources.

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