Anolis Lizards of the Greater Antilles: QUESTIONS PART I Anolis Lizards of the Greater Antilles: QUESTIONS PART I. INTRODUCTION 1) Where are the Greater Antilles? Which Islands make up the Greater Antilles? 2) What is the goal of this research? PART II. LOOKING FOR PATTERNS 3) What type of information does the data table show? 4) Describe the six different types of body shapes that the lizards have. 5) What patterns do you see between the type of body shape a lizard has and the habitat it lives in? 6) Does this pattern exist on all islands? Explain. 7) Which lizards do you think are more closely related; those that live on the same island but in different habitats, or those that live on different islands but have the same body features and live in the same type of habitat? Explain. 8) Write two alternative hypotheses about how these lizards might have speciated/evolved on and between these islands. 9) How could you test your hypotheses? PART III. TESTING YOUR HYPOTHESES 10) Explain the different patterns that you see in the phylogenetic tree. Look at their body shape, habitat, and the island on which they are found. Write down as many observations as you can. 11) Based on the phylogenetic tree, which lizards do you think are more closely related: those that live on the same island but in different habitats, or those that live on different islands but have the same body shape and live in the same type of habitat? Explain using specific examples. 12) Look back at your original hypotheses (question 8). Explain how these new data support or do not support your hypotheses about how these lizards might have speciated/evolved. 13) How could you further test your hypotheses? What type of information would you want to have? 14) How could fossil evidence help you test your hypotheses? 15) How do you think the lizards could have gotten from one island to another?
16. Why can multiple ecomorphs survive on the same island without too much competition? 17. What does the phylogenetic tree tell you about the history of Anole evolution? 18. Use the concept of niche partitioning, competition, and character displacement in a description of how the ecomorphs came to be. 19. How can the concept of an adaptive radiation (or multiple adaptive radiations) explain the diversity of Anoles? 20. Why do you think the Anoles have been so successful and able to diversify into so many species? 21. Use the terms of directional selection and disruptive selection and isolation to describe how speciation occurred in these lizards. 22. Use the concept of convergent evolution to explain the repeated evolution of the various ecomorphs and why each island contains all the body types. 23. Choose two of the ecomorphs and explain how its traits could be adaptations for its particular habitat. Examine the phylogenetic trees you colored and answer the following questions. 24. What general patterns do you see in the tree? a. Colored by Island: b. Colored by Ecomorph: 25. Do species from the same ecomorph group together on the tree? Provide evidence to support your answer. 26. Do species from the same island group together on the tree? Provide evidence to support your answer. 27. Based on the trees you colored, develop a claim whether the species that belong to the same ecomorphs or the species that live on the same islands are more closely related to each other. Justify your claim with several pieces of evidence from the colored phylogenetic trees: