How to record toepad length width and sub-digital lamellae of Anolis lizard digits using high-resolution scans. PDF
The increasing availability and price paired with a decrease in size has meant the flat-bed scanner can now become a useful tool in field studies of ecology and evolution. When conducting research on anoles, one trait of considerable interest are the characteristics of sub-digital toepads. Built on a solid foundation of performance studies, it is clear that toepads are incredibly important to the type of microhabitat that anoles use; more arboreal lizards, in other words those at biggest risk of falling, have larger toepads with more sub-digital lamellae. The relationship is reversed in more terrestrial species. I developed a tutorial aimed at teaching students how to record toepad traits once a lizards has been scanned.
Anole Annals blog post with more details can be found here.
You can download ImageJ for free from here.
The increasing availability and price paired with a decrease in size has meant the flat-bed scanner can now become a useful tool in field studies of ecology and evolution. When conducting research on anoles, one trait of considerable interest are the characteristics of sub-digital toepads. Built on a solid foundation of performance studies, it is clear that toepads are incredibly important to the type of microhabitat that anoles use; more arboreal lizards, in other words those at biggest risk of falling, have larger toepads with more sub-digital lamellae. The relationship is reversed in more terrestrial species. I developed a tutorial aimed at teaching students how to record toepad traits once a lizards has been scanned.
Anole Annals blog post with more details can be found here.
You can download ImageJ for free from here.