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The Effects Of Ecological Context And Individual Characteristics On Stereotyped Displays In Male Anolis Carolinensis, Catherine Policastro

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Displays are ubiquitous throughout the animal kingdom. While many have been thoroughly documented, the factors affecting the expression of such displays are still not fully understood. We tested the hypotheses that display production would be affected by ecological context (i.e. the identity of the receiver) and intrinsic qualities of the signaler (i.e. heavyweight and lightweight size class) in the green anole lizard, Anolis carolinensis. Our results supported these predictions and show that a) ecological context, specifically displaying to conspecifics, has the greatest impact on display production; b) size class influenced display rate with heavyweight males displaying more to green …