Altitudinal effects on the life history of the Anatolian lizard(Apathya cappadocica, Werner 1902) from southeastern Anatolia, Turkey

Abstract

Altitudinal gradients are an important variable in testing the life history traits (e.g., longevity, age at maturity, and body size) of organisms. In this study, the life history traits of the Anatolian lizard Apathya cappadocica were examined from 3 populations from different altitudes (Kilis, 697 m; Şanlıurfa, 891 m; Diyarbakır, 1058 m) from southeastern Anatolia, Turkey. Age structure was determined by using skeletochronology. Males in all populations were the larger sex; therefore, the populations showed male biases that were negative by the sexual size dimorphism index. Males in Diyarbakır (high altitude) were also younger than males in the other populations. There were no significant differences between the males and females of all 3 populations in terms of either age or snoutvent length except in the Şanlıurfa population, in which males were larger than females. Life history traits of A. cappadocica across altitudinal gradients may be affected by climatic factors, as males from the middle altitude population in Şanlıurfa, which inhabits a warmer and more arid environment, tended to be larger than males and females in Kilis and Diyarbakır.

Age and growth of the red-belied lizard, Darevskia parvula

“…Skeletochronology, which is known as a very effective and reliable method, is used to calculate age by using presence of growth layers in the bone tissue and counting the lines of arrested growth (LAGs) in reptilian species (Castanet, 1994;Nayak et al, 2008;Guarino et al, 2010;Kim et al, 2010;Kolarov et al, 2010;Arakelyan et al, 2013;Kurita & Toda, 2013). For age determination of Turkish reptiles, a growing number of studies has been recently performed (Altunışık et al, 2013;Arakelyan et al, 2013;Tok et al, 2013;Gül et al, 2014Gül et al, , 2015Üzüm et al, 2014Kanat & Tok, 2015;Yakın & Tok, 2015).…”

Age structure and body size of the endangered species Darevskia bendimahiensis (Schmidtler, Eiselt & Darevsky, 1994) from eastern Turkey (Squamata, Sauria, Lacertidae)

“…The mean age of the specimens (4.91 years) is similar to other parthenogenetic Darevskia species (Arakelyan et al 2013) living in highlands like D. bendimahiensis. As a general rule, lizard specimens, inhabiting high elevation sites and northern latitudes, usually live longer than specimens inhabiting low-elevations sites and southern latitudes (Roitberg and Smirina 2006;Gül et al 2015b;Altunışık et al 2016). The longevity is related to active period, altitude, latitude, other climatic and environmental factors, food availability, predation and human-induced stress (Bülbül et al 2016a(Bülbül et al , 2018b.…”

Age and growth in two populations of Danford’s lizard, Anatololacerta danfordi (Günther, 1876), from the eastern Mediterranean

“…Skeletochronology, which is used to estimate individual age by counting growth rings, also known as lines of arrested growth (LAGs), from the cross-sections of long bone tissue, is the most expedient way as it shortens the time of the study and does not require any animals to be sacrificed (Castanet and Smirina, 1990). In addition to this, skeletochronology has yielded successful results in previous studies on lizards such as Acanthodactylus boskianus (Üzüm et al, 2014), Acanthodactylus harranensis (Beşer et al, 2019), Anatololacerta anatolica (Yakın and Tok, 2015), Apathya cappadocica (Gül et al, 2015a), Darevskia rudis (Gül et al, 2014), Dinarolacerta mosorensis (Kolarov et al, 2010), Eremias argus (Kim et al, 2010), Lacerta agilis (Guarino et al, 2010), Phoenicolacerta laevis (Üzüm et al, 2018), Podarcis lilfordi (Rotger et al, 2016), and Podarcis tauricus (Eroğlu et al, 2017). We tested the correlation of the age structure and some morphological characteristics of the two A. danfordi populations.…”