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Behavioral plasticity is expected to facilitate the colonization of novel
habitats by allowing populations to respond rapidly to abrupt
environmental change. We studied contextual plasticity—a form of
plasticity that allows an immediate phenotypic response to stimuli—in the
territorial communication of Puerto Rican Anolis lizards and considered
the role it might play in facilitating colonization. In these lizards, the
detection of territorial visual displays by receivers is acutely dependent
on fluctuating levels of visual noise from windblown vegetation and
ambient light. We quantified the contextual reaction norms of various
components of the territorial displays of individual lizards as a function
of visual noise and light for one focal population over many weeks of
observation. We then compared these contextual reaction norms to the
displays given by closely related Anolis species found in other
environments to assess the extent to which colonizing lizards might be
capable of performing displays similar to those likely to be effective in
those environments. Our results suggest that lizards are able to rapidly
adjust their territorial displays in ways that might help them communicate
in other (but not all) habitat types on Puerto Rico. Given that the
contextual plasticity of animal signals can be measured in free-living
animals far more easily than other forms of behavioral plasticity, our
study presents animal communication as a tractable model for tackling
broad questions in how phenotypic plasticity might facilitate
colonization, adjustment to environmental change, and adaptation.
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