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Agonistic behavioural asymmetry in two species of montane lizard that exhibit elevational replacement

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Abstract

Context

In montane systems, closely related species tend to segregate spatially along elevational gradients. The role of biotic interactions, relative to species physiological requirements, in maintaining these distribution patterns is an important question in spatial ecology. Theory suggests that the role of interspecific competition can be significant in the maintenance of elevation replacement distributions. Despite this, there has been limited work investigating factors beyond thermophysiology in determining ranges in temperate montane species.

Objectives and methods

We investigated agonistic (i.e. aggressive) behaviour in response to a simulated intruder (conspecific versus heterospecific 3D printed models) in two sister species of temperate montane lizard, Liopholis guthega and L. montana, from south-eastern Australia. The two species have similar thermal tolerances at an area of distributional overlap between 1600 and 1700 m above sea level, above which L. montana is replaced by the high elevation specialist L. guthega.

Results

We found that response to intruder stimuli differed between the two species, with the high elevation L. guthega actively biting both conspecific and heterospecific models, whereas the lower elevation L. montana, never attacked either model type. Our findings provide evidence of asymmetric agonistic response in the two montane reptile species.

Conclusions

These findings have important implications for understanding how biological interactions and behaviour, in addition to thermo-physiological data, might mediate landscape scale distribution patterns both now and as environments change in the future. More broadly, our results are not consistent with the widespread idea that low elevation species will inevitably ‘push’ higher elevation species out, as global warming erodes species’ thermal envelopes.

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Data availability

Data will be deposited on Figshare upon acceptance of the manuscript.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge First Nations Australians of the Ngarigo and Wurundjeri, upon whose land this research was undertaken. For logistical support we thank Justin Adams, Laura Cook, Kaspar Delhey, Emily Drummond, Marie Fan, Mark Feeney, Katelyn Hamilton, Rob Hayes, Carolyn Kovach, Topi Lehtonen, Chantel McCubbin, Matt McCurry, Alex McQueen, Jane Melville, Michelle Quayle, Mellesa Schroder, Chris Senior, and Brook Sykes. Special thanks to George Madani and Lachlan Hall for their photographs. This work was supported by the Holsworth Research Endowment (grant awarded to AFS), and an Australian Research Council Discovery Project Grant (DP150102900, grant to DGC, MMG and GMW).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Victoria, 3800, Australia

    Anna F. Senior, David G. Chapple & Bob B. M. Wong

  2. Department of Ecology, Environment and Evolution, La Trobe University, Bundoora, VIC, 3086, Australia

    Zak S. Atkins

  3. Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research, PO Box 137, Heidelberg, VIC, 3084, Australia

    Nick Clemann

  4. College of Science and Engineering, Flinders University, GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, South Australia, 5001, Australia

    Michael G. Gardner

  5. School of Biological Sciences, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, 7005, Australia

    Geoffrey M. While

  6. Evolutionary Biology Unit South Australian Museum, North Terrace, Adelaide, South Australia, 5000, Australia

    Michael G. Gardner

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  1. Anna F. Senior
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Contributions

AFS carried out fieldwork, lab experiments and data analysis, contributed to the design of the study and wrote the manuscript. BBMW, DGC, NC and ZSA contributed to the design of the study and drafting of the manuscript. MGG and GMW contributed to the drafting of the manuscript. All authors gave final approval for publication.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to David G. Chapple.

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Ethical approval

Research was conducted in accordance with appropriate collection and research permits (New South Wales: SL101798) and was approved by the Monash University animal welfare committee (BSCI/2016/24).

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Senior, A.F., Chapple, D.G., Atkins, Z.S. et al. Agonistic behavioural asymmetry in two species of montane lizard that exhibit elevational replacement. Landscape Ecol 36, 863–876 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01184-5

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