Data from: Hurricane-induced selection on the morphology of an island lizard

Hurricanes are catastrophically destructive. Beyond their toll on human
life and livelihoods, hurricanes have massive and often long-lasting
effects on ecological systems. Despite many examples of mass mortality
events following hurricanes, hurricane-induced natural selection has never
been demonstrated. Immediately after we finished a survey of Anolis
scriptus, a common, small-bodied lizard found throughout the Turks and
Caicos archipelago, our study populations were battered by Hurricanes Irma
and Maria. Shortly thereafter, we revisited the populations to determine
whether morphological traits related to clinging capacity had shifted in
the intervening six weeks and found that surviving lizards differed in
body size, relative limb length and toepad size from those present before
the storm. Our serendipitous study, the first to employ an immediate
before-after comparison to test this question, demonstrates that
hurricanes can induce phenotypic change in a population, and strongly
implicates natural selection as the cause. In the decades ahead, as
extreme climate events are predicted to become more intense and prevalent,
our understanding of evolutionary dynamics needs to incorporate the impact
of these potentially severe selective episodes.