Relationships between head development and diet in neonates of Tropidurus catalanensis lizards

• Grant number: 22/12026-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Master's degree
• Start date: March 06, 2023
• End date: September 05, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Morphology of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Tiana Kohlsdorf
• Grantee: Danilo Camargo Fernandes
• Supervisor: Olga Panagiotopoulou
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto (FFCLRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Monash University, Australia
• Associated to the scholarship: 21/02665-6 - Diet evolution in Tropiduridae lizards: ecological relations and phenotypic associations, BP.MS

Abstract

Morphological differences among individuals of a given species may express genetic variation but also plastic responses to environmental signals. Developmental plasticity refers to the inherent ability to adjust phenotypic development in response to environmental cues experienced during ontogeny. Because of the different mechanical challenges associated with food processing, diet has the potential to considerably influence developmental and growth processes of specific structures in the skull. This is broadly studied in some groups, such as rodents and macaques, in which the impact of food hardness and toughness in bone remodelling is known. The current BEPE proposal consists of a six-month internship under the supervision of Dr. Olga Panagiotopoulou at the Moving Morphology and Functional Mechanics Laboratory - Monash University, Australia. We raised juveniles of Tropidurus catalanensis lizards for four months after birth in the lab in Brazil. The animals were divided in three groups of different diets right after birth: group 1 = 100% soft food (cockroaches), group 2 = 80% hard food (bees) and 20% soft food (cockroaches), group 3 = 80% plants (apples) and 20% soft food (cockroaches). Using advanced techniques in image acquisition and analyses, during the BEPE internship we aim to evaluate plastic responses to diet during head growth of the juveniles raised in the laboratory, inferring if eventual phenotypic differences express variation in the biomechanical properties of skull bones. We hypothesise that individuals that consumed hard food will have greater bone deposition in the skull and this will cause the bones to be more resistant to greater strain forces, which has been barely tested for non-mammalian vertebrate groups in the literature. (AU)