The relationship between bite force, morphology, and diet in southern African agamids.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Many animals display morphological and behavioural adaptations to the habitats in which they live and the resources they exploit. Bite force is an important whole-organism performance trait that allows an increase in dietary breadth, the inclusion of novel prey in the diet, territory and predatory defence, and is important during mating in many lizards.

Methods

Here, we study six species of southern African agamid lizards from three habitat types (ground-dwelling, rock-dwelling, and arboreal) to investigate whether habitat use constrains head morphology and bite performance. We further tested whether bite force and head morphology evolve as adaptations to diet by analysing a subset of these species for which diet data were available.

Results

Overall, both j

SUBMITTER: Tan WC 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8215774 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature