Movement patterns and habitat use for the sympatric species: Gambelia wislizenii and Aspidoscelis tigris

Background: Movement is an important characteristic of an animal’s ecology, reflecting perception of and response to environmental conditions. To effectively search for food, movement patterns likely depend on habitat characteristics and the sensory systems used to find prey. We examined movements associated with foraging for two sympatric species of lizards inhabiting the Great Basin Desert of southeastern Oregon. The two species have largely overlapping diets but find prey via different sensory cues, which link to their differing foraging strategies — the long-nosed leopard lizard, Gambelia wislizenii, is a visually-oriented predator, while the western whiptail, Aspidoscelis tigris, relies more heavily on chemosensory cues to find prey.
Methods: Using detailed focal observations, we characterized the habitat use and movement paths of each species. We placed markers at the location of focal animals every minute for the duration of each 30-min observation. Afterwards, we recorded whethe..., Data were collected in the field during 30-minute focal animal observations. Markers were placed every minute, and then data generated on movement paths and habitat use. We anaylzed data using Minitab and R (for circular statistics)., Data are saved in XML spreadsheet format and as Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) spreadsheets.