Homing in eastern fence lizards (Sceloporus undulatus) following short-distance translocation

Abstract

We conducted an experiment on eastern fence lizards (Sceloporus undulatus) during August-September 1995 near Los Alamos, New Mexico, (1) to ascertain if lizards that were relocated short distances exhibited homing, (2) to investigate a possible barrier to movement, and (3) to determine the effect of translocating individuals from a transplant area on lizards in a recipient area. We relocated 15 of an estimated population of 39 (95% CI 36-45) lizards an average distance of 46 m. Fourteen of 15 translocated lizards returned to within 6.81 (s(̄) = 1.43) m of the original capture location. Movement distances did not yaw (F = 0.76; 1,53 df; P = 0.381) between resident and translocated lizards during the pretreatment period and did not vary for resident (F = 2.86; 1,12 df; P = 0.1166), but varied between pretreatment and posttreatment periods for translocated (F = 14.65, 1,7 df, P = 0.0065) lizards. Translocated lizards did not affect the resighting probability of resident lizards (F = 0.96; 1,14 dr; P = 0.34), but this may be related to low power (1 - β = 0.15) and translocated lizards moving out of the area quickly.