Correlated evolution of herbivory and food chemical discrimination in iguanian and ambush foraging lizards

William E. Cooper

Behavioral Ecology, 2003, vol. 14, issue 3, 409-416

Abstract: To efficiently locate and assess foods, animal sensory capacities and behavioral discriminations based on them must be appropriate for the diet and method of hunting. In lizards, actively foraging insectivores identify animal prey using lingually sampled chemical cues, but ambush foragers do not. Among plant eaters derived from active foragers, plant chemical discrimination is added to prey chemical discrimination, resulting in correlated evolution of plant diet and plant chemical discrimination. Here I present comparative evidence on the relationships between plant diet and food chemical discrimination in Iguania, which consists primarily of ambush foragers and is one of two major lizard clades, and for ambushing lizards in general. Comparative analyses conducted using phylogenetic methods show that (1) all but one species of omnivore studied exhibited both prey and plant chemical discrimination, whereas ambush foragers exhibited neither; (2) significant correlated evolution occurred between plant diet and plant chemical discrimination in Iguania and in omnivores and herbivores derived from ambush foragers; and (3) correlated evolution has occurred between prey and plant chemical discrimination in Iguania and, more generally, in taxa derived from ambush foragers. These results are explained by selection on plant eaters to assess the nutritional value and possible toxicity of plants and by continued consumption of some animal prey even in herbivores combined with freedom from factors that select against prey chemical discrimination in ambush foragers. Copyright 2003.

Keywords: behavior; evolution; foraging mode; food chemical discrimination; lizards; Squamata (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/ (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:beheco:v:14:y:2003:i:3:p:409-416

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Behavioral Ecology is currently edited by Louise Barrett

More articles in Behavioral Ecology from International Society for Behavioral Ecology Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().