Date of Award
8-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Biological Sciences
Committee Chair/Advisor
Richard W. Blob
Committee Member
Samantha A. Price
Committee Member
John D. DesJardins
Committee Member
Jesse W. Young
Abstract
Animals must contend with unexpected changes in their habitat and environment to thrive. Arboreal habitats can consist of a wide variety of environmental features, and failure to adequately contend with these features can result in high risk of injury or death upon falling. Despite these strong selective pressures, many vertebrate lineages have successfully invaded arboreal habitats. Using lizard taxa as a model system, I investigated how morphology and behavior have evolved within this specific habitat transition. I pursued these investigations through complementary analyses including: 1) evaluating the effect of stance height and tail prehensility on perturbation recovery, 2) assessing behavior during unexpected perch integrity failure, and 3) evaluating how arboreal and terrestrial lizards navigated a drop in substrate height. Results suggest that there may be numerous evolutionary paths that arboreal animals take to mitigate risks associated with environmental hazards, and that the relationship between form and function may not completely align with environment-specific expectations. All together, these experiments contribute to the understanding of how animals adapt to high risks in their environments.
Recommended Citation
Munteanu, Victor D., "Lizards in the Trees: Structural, Functional, and Behavioral Specializations to a High-Risk Environment" (2026). All Dissertations. 4376.
https://open.clemson.edu/all_dissertations/4376
Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-0318-2423
Included in
Evolution Commons, Integrative Biology Commons, Zoology Commons