de Andrade Antonio C
Departamento de Engenharia e Meio Ambiente Universidade Federal da Paraiba Rio Tinto Brazil.
Centre of Urban Enviroments University of Toronto Mississauga Mississauga ON Canada.
Ecol Evol. 2019 Sep 30;10(4):1740-1750. doi: 10.1002/ece3.5518. eCollection 2020 Feb.
Urbanization, with its cohort of environmental stressors, has a dramatic effect on wildlife, causing loss of biodiversity and decline in population abundance customarily associated with increasing levels of impervious surface and fragmentation of native habitats. Some studies suggest that faunal species from open habitats, and with higher abundance in natural environments, seem more likely to tolerate and live in urban environments. Here I evaluate how the level of urbanization affects lagartixas () one of the most common lizards found in open vegetation ecosystems in NE Brazil. I surveyed a total of 47 transects across sites that differed in proportion of impervious surface (high, mild, peri-urban, and rural). I also collected specific biotic (herbaceous cover, tree, and arthropod abundance) and abiotic (amount of shelters and impervious surfaces) factors that could affect lagartixas abundance. Ants were the most common arthropod both in the rural and urban environment. Lagartixas thrive in urban environments, and trees and shelter were key predictors of their abundance. Lagartixas show a clear association with use of artificial structures. The low densities of lagartixas in rural areas and higher density in urbanized areas suggest that they colonized urban areas due to the hard surfaces and they probably are not exploiting a novel habitat, but somewhat responding to conditions resembling those in which they evolved. Finally, lagartixas are extremely common in tropical cities, they have a suite of features that are associated with selective pressures in cities and they might play a key functional role in urban ecosystems making this lizard an excellent system for the study of ecology and adaptation to the urban environments.
城市化及其带来的一系列环境压力源对野生动物产生了巨大影响，导致生物多样性丧失和种群数量减少，这通常与不透水表面的增加和原生栖息地的破碎化有关。一些研究表明，来自开阔栖息地且在自然环境中数量较多的动物物种似乎更有可能耐受并生活在城市环境中。在此，我评估城市化水平如何影响拉加蒂克斯蜥蜴（），这是在巴西东北部开阔植被生态系统中发现的最常见蜥蜴之一。我在不同不透水表面比例（高、中、城郊和农村）的地点共调查了47条样带。我还收集了可能影响拉加蒂克斯蜥蜴数量的特定生物因素（草本覆盖、树木和节肢动物数量）和非生物因素（庇护所数量和不透水表面）。蚂蚁是农村和城市环境中最常见的节肢动物。拉加蒂克斯蜥蜴在城市环境中茁壮成长，树木和庇护所是其数量的关键预测因素。拉加蒂克斯蜥蜴与人工结构的使用有着明显的关联。农村地区拉加蒂克斯蜥蜴密度低而城市化地区密度高，这表明它们因硬表面而在城市地区定居，它们可能并非开拓新栖息地，而是在某种程度上对类似其进化环境的条件做出反应。最后，拉加蒂克斯蜥蜴在热带城市极为常见，它们具有一系列与城市选择压力相关的特征，并且可能在城市生态系统中发挥关键的功能作用，这使得这种蜥蜴成为研究城市生态和适应城市环境的绝佳系统。
