Common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis) vs urbanization

Abstract

Urbanization is predominantly linked with negative effects on wildlife. Indeed, numerous human-induced environmental changes (e.g. habitat fragmentation and destruction, pollution, etc.) have a devastating effect on indigenous wildlife. However, urbanization, trough creating pockets of supernatural habitats, can have a positive effect on indigenous species. In our study, we wanted to examine how urbanization level (urban, suburban and natural habitats) affects Podarcis muralis populations across the Vojvodina region, Serbia. We tested (A) lizard’s pileus: (1) size and shape, (2) fluctuating asymmetry (FA), (3) allometry, (4) modularity, and (5) phenodeviant frequencies and (B) meristic traits (supraciliar plates, sublabial plates, subdigital lamellae of 4th hind limb toes, femoral pores): (1) fluctuating asymmetry (FA). Pileus examination gave some peculiar results: unexpectedly high FA level was observed in the natural population. On the other hand, analysis of meristic traits showed high FA in urban population. Importantly, some meristic characters revealed different patterns of FA, suggesting that caution must be practiced when deciding what characters are more appropriate for FA analysis. In addition, we built an ecological niche model for the populations inhabiting the Vojvodina region (consisted predominantly of anthropogenic habitats) and compared it with the one obtained for central and southern Serbia, where lizards mainly occupy natural habitats. With this comparison, we wanted to see what the similarities between natural and anthropogenic habitats are, and which environmental factors limit/enable common wall lizard to successfully inhabit urbanized areas.