Lizards from suburban areas learn faster to stay safe.

ABSTRACT: Enhanced cognitive ability is beneficial in unpredictable and harsh environments, as it enables animals to respond with flexibility. For animals living in urbanized areas, local environments not only are altered but can rapidly change during their lifetime. Urban residents are therefore challenged with identifying novel dangers and safe refuges in dynamic environments. We demonstrate that the tropical agamid lizard Psammophilus dorsalis experiences dramatically different habitats not only across the rural to urban spatial scale but also over the short temporal scale of a few years in suburban areas. Differences in environmental stability are expected to affect rates of learning and reversal learning in resident lizards. In testing arenas, lizards from these populations were required to cho

SUBMITTER: Batabyal A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6405467 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature