Heat, safety or solitude? Using habitat selection experiments to identify a lizard's priorities
@article{Downes1998HeatSO, title={Heat, safety or solitude? Using habitat selection experiments to identify a lizard's priorities}, author={S Downes and Richard Shine}, journal={Animal Behaviour}, year={1998}, volume={55}, pages={1387-1396} }
Laboratory experiments with a rock-dwelling nocturnal gecko, Oedura lesueurii, showed that retreat-site selection (and other behaviours) are affected by the interplay between thermal benefits, social advantages and avoidance of predators. Velvet geckos were highly selective in habitat choice: they preferred artificial retreat-sites that mimic the thermal properties of natural rocks in full sun rather than those that mimic rocks in full shade; mature male geckos rarely shared retreat-sites with…
212 Citations
Experimental analysis of retreat-site selection by thick-tailed geckos Nephrurus milii
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The present study supports the idea that nocturnal reptiles base their selection of diurnal shelters on multiple aspects related to the fitness consequences of occupancy of alternative available retreat-sites.
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This study suggests that structural properties alone may be sufficient to explain the preference of geckos for triple-layered Onduline stacks, but does not eliminate the possibility that attractive thermal properties also contribute.
How Do Nocturnal Snakes Select Diurnal Retreat Sites?
- Environmental ScienceCopeia
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The results show that these nocturnal snakes use a fixed structural cue (crevice size) to select potential retreat sites but then use a temporally variable cue (substrate temperature) to choose among possible retreat sites.
FITNESS BENEFITS OF RETREAT-SITE SELECTION: SPIDERS, ROCKS, AND THERMAL CUES
- Environmental Science
- 2004
Scientists study flat rock spiders from eastern Australia, where these highly modified (dorsoventrally flattened) spiders live under loose surface rocks on sandstone outcrops, to investigate consequences of habitat selection on fitness-related traits.
Recent Physical Encounters Affect Chemically Mediated Retreat-Site Selection in a Gecko
- Biology
- 2007
The notion that recent physical social encounters can affect the way that animals respond to chemical information from potential competitors is supported.
Insular geckos provide experimental evidence on refuge selection priorities by ectotherms
- Environmental ScienceBehavioural Processes
- 2019
Microhabitat Selection of Five-Lined Skinks in Northern Peripheral Populations
- Environmental Science
- 2006
Examination of early-season diurnal retreat site selection preferences of the Five-Lined Skink at the northern limit of its range found that individuals of E. fasciatus prefer longer than average cover rocks located in areas with few trees, and rocks lying on a bedrock substrate afford the best opportunities for skinks to achieve preferred body temperatures.
Intraguild predation, thermoregulation, and microhabitat selection by snakes
- Environmental Science
- 2009
It is suggested that thermoregulatory considerations are sufficient to prompt juvenile (but not adult) broad-headed snakes to risk IG predation, emphasizing the importance of microhabitat quality and body size in mediating IG predator--prey interactions.
Social context alters retreat- and nest-site selection in a globally invasive gecko, Hemidactylus frenatus
- Environmental Science, Biology
- 2019
Overall, gravid geckos housed alone typically nested in the same substrates that they used as diurnal retreats; when housed in groups, however, females oviposited in locations different from those they selected as retreats.
Reliable Refuge: Two Sky Island Scorpion Species Select Larger, Thermally Stable Retreat Sites
- Environmental SciencePloS one
- 2016
While thermal selection did not differ among non-gravid individuals, gravid Vaejovis cashi and V. electrum both selected larger retreat sites that had more stable thermal profiles, and neither species appeared to have thermal preferences influenced by reproductive condition.
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