Volatile fatty acid and aldehyde abundances evolve with behavior and habitat temperature in Sceloporus lizards

Animal signals evolve by striking a balance between the need to convey information through particular habitats and the limitations of what types of signals can most easily be produced and perceived. Here, we present new results from field measures of undisturbed behavior and biochemical analyses of scent marks from 12 species of Sceloporus lizards to explore whether evolutionary changes in chemical composition are better predicted by measures of species behavior , particularly those associated with visual displays, chemoreception, and locomotion, or by measures of habitat climate (precipitation and temperature). We found that more active lizard species used fewer compounds in their volatile scent marks, perhaps conveying less specific information about individual, sex and species identity. Scent marks from more active lizard species also had higher proportions of saturated fatty acids, and the evolution of these compounds has been tracking the phylogeny closely as we would expect for a ...