Scale dependency of Liolaemus lizards? home range in response to different environmental variables

STELLATELLI, O.A.; BLOCK C; MORENO AZÓCAR D.L; VEGA LE; ISACCH JP; CRUZ FB

Current Zoology

Chinese Academy of Science

Año: 2016 vol. 62 p. 521 - 530

1674-5507

Animal habitat-use patterns cannot be isolated from scale issues. Consequently, multi-scale studiesprovide a complete characterization of ecological patterns that can further explain the observed20 variation. Liolaemus constitutes the world?s second most speciose lizard genus. In this study, weassessed the relationships between home range size and environmental variables at 3 differentspatial scales. The study at a local and regional scale was focused on the habitat specialistLiolaemus multimaculatus. The lizard?s home range was calculated using the minimum convexpolygon method in populations from grassland sites of the coastal sand dunes of the Argentinean25 pampas under 2 different conditions, with or without forestations of Acacia longifolia. On the otherhand, at a geographical scale we considered the evolutionary implications of 20 species ofLiolaemus. Home range size, phylogeny, ecological, environmental, and climatic data were obtainedfrom the literature and remote sensing. L. multimaculatus home range varied from 12.66 to570.00 m. Regionally, this species had smaller home ranges in forested habitats (X: 94.02m2) com-30 pared with the non-forested sites (X: 219.78m2). Habitat structure, vegetation types, and food availabilitywould explain the space use at finer scales. When the 20 species of Liolaemus wereconsidered, high mean air temperature and broad thermal amplitudes showed an inverse relationshipwith home range size. Neither net primary productivity nor phylogeny was good predictors forhome range variation at geographical scale. This study highlights the scale dependence of the35 explicative capability of a set of environmental and intrinsic variables on home range patterns