How lizards form, maintain, and benefit from social relationships — from pair bonds to population-wide interaction networks.
In Douglas County, Kansas, Erell researchers are documenting the social network structure of an introduced population of Italian wall lizards (Podarcis siculus). By mapping individual interactions across an entire population, the project asks how social connectivity shapes the spread of behaviors and the integration of a non-native species into a novel environment.
In Baja California Sur, Mexico, we examined social aggregation behavior in the Baja California rock lizard (Petrosaurus thalassinus). Behavioral observations revealed consistent social associations among individuals at shared basking sites, raising questions about the adaptive value of group living in a species not traditionally considered social.
Research on Little Scrub Island, Anguilla, described the complete social network of a population of the Little Scrub Island ground lizard (Ameiva corax) — one of the first full social network analyses for a teiid lizard. Work in this system also documented social foraging, in which individuals adjusted foraging behavior in the presence of conspecifics.