Lateralization in escape behaviour at different hierarchical levels in a Gecko: Tarentola angustimentalis from eastern Canary Islands

At the individual level, to be behaviourally lateralized avoids costly duplication of neural circuitry and decreases possible contradictory order from the two brain hemispheres. However, being prey behaviour lateralized at higher hierarchical levels could generate different negative implications, especially if predators are able to make predictions after multiple encounters. These conflicting pressures, namely between the advantages for individuals and the disadvantages for populations could be concealed if higher-level lateralization would arise from the combination of lateralized behaviours of individuals which are mutually dependent. Here, we investigated the lateralization patterns in the escape behaviour of the gecko Tarentola angustimentalis undergoing a predatory attack simulation in a "T" maze experiment. Results showed that gecko populations displayed different degrees of lateralization, with an overall dominance of right-biased individuals. This trend is similar to that observed in the Podarcis wall lizards, which share predators with Tarentola. In addition, different morphological parameters plausible to affect refuge selection were explored in order to link directional asymmetries at morphological level with lateralization during refuge selection.Fieldwork was carried out with the support of the project PTDC/BIA-BEC/101256/2008 funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, Portugal). E.G.-M. was supported by postdoc grant from FCT (SFRH/BPD/72806/2010). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Thanks are due to Herve Seligmann and an anonymous reviewer for comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of the manuscript.publishe

Habitat Structure: The Physical Arrangement of Objects in Space

We conceived the idea for this book after teaching a graduate seminar on \u27Habitat Complexity\u27 at The University of South Florida. Discussions during the seminar led us to conclude that similar goals were to be found in studies of the topic that spanned the breadth of ecological research. Yet, the exact meaning of \u27habitat structure\u27, and the way in which it was measured, seemed to differ widely among subdisciplines. Our own research, which involves several sorts of ecology, convinced us that the differences among subdisciplines were indeed real ones, and that they did inhibit communica­ tion. We decided that interchange of ideas among researchers working in marine ecology, plant-animal interactions, physiological ecology, and other more-or-less independent fields would be worthwhile, in that it might lead to useful generalizations about \u27habitat structure\u27. To foster this interchange of ideas. we organized a symposium to attract researchers working with a wide variety of organisms living in many habitats, but united in their interest in the topic of \u27habitat structure\u27. The symposium was held at The University of South Florida\u27s Chinsegut Hill Conference Center, in May. 1988. We asked participants to think about \u27habitat structure\u27 in new ways; to synthesize important, but fragmented, information; and. perhaps. to consider ways of translating ideas across systems. The chapters contained in this book reflect the participants\u27 attempts to do so. The book is divided into four parts, by major themes that we have found useful categorizations