Home Range Of The Florida Scrub Lizard (Sceloporus woodi)

Abstract

I studied the effects of gender and habitat patch size * on the home range of the Florida Scrub Lizard (Sceloporus woodi) for a period of three months during the summer of 1997. Scrub Lizards were trapped using 5-gallon bucket traps, noosing, and visual recapture. Location data collected for the lizards on eight 1-ha trapping grids was used to estimate the lizards' home range size. Significant differences between home ranges of males and females were found. Males had larger home ranges than females. There was no significant difference in home range size between lizards in small versus large patches. In addition, there was no significant interaction between sex of the lizard and patch size in their effect on home range size. Although patch size did not significantly influence home range size, there was a trend toward such an effect, especially for females. Males may have larger home ranges in order to have access to a greater number of females. Both sexes may have slightly smaller home ranges in large patches because lizard density is higher in large patches leading to increased competition. My results suggest that gender and possibly patch size can have significant effects on life history parameters such as home range.