Comparison of Natural and Nonnative Two-Species Communities of Anolis Lizards

Human-mediated colonizations present an informative model system for understanding assembly of organismal communities. However, it is unclear whether communities including naturalized species are accurate analogs of natural communities or unique combinations not present in nature. I compared morphology and phylogenetic structure of natural and naturalized two-species communities of Anolis lizards. Natural communities are phylogenetically clustered, whereas naturalized communities show no significant phylogenetic structure. This result likely reflects differences in colonization pools for these communities—that is, invasion from anywhere for naturalized communities but from proximal and thus phylogenetically close lineages in natural communities. Both natural and naturalized communities each include pairs of species that are significantly similar to each other in morphology, and both sets of communities are composed of species that possess traits of good colonizers. These similarities suggest that the formation of natural and naturalized communities may be at least partially governed by similar processes. Human-mediated invasions may be credibly viewed as modern incarnations of natural colonizations in this case.