Latitudinal Variation in Activity Season Mortality Rates of the Lizard Uta Stansburiana
Authors: Wilson Byron S. 
Published: April 2006

It is often claimed that predation pressure on plants and animals increases toward the equator. Here I address the specific hypothesis that predation pressure is greater on lower latitude populations of the lizard Uta stansburiana. Standard mark—recapture techniques (10 997 captures of 5371 individuals) were used to estimate mortality rates for seven populations that lie along a transect of nearly 15° latitude (central Washington to extreme southeastern California, USA). Mortality was estimated for both the early (i.e., spring to summer) and late (i.e., summer to late summer or fall) portions of the activity season. As in previous studies of this species, I found that emigration was negligible for adult lizards. Thus, disappearance rates serve as reliable indices of mortality rates. Although predation is known to be a major source of mortality for populations of U. stansburiana, direct measurement (i.e., observation) of the demographic impact of predators is impractical. My strategy was to examine the potential demographic importance of mortality sources other than predation (e.g., senescence, physiological stress). If alternate sources of mortality can be shown to be of trivial importance, then overall mortality rates can be used to infer variation in predation pressure. To assess the importance of these mortality factors I examined variation in mortality within sites (e.g., among seasons, years, and individuals) in relation to data about the lizard (e.g., age, physical condition) and about their environment (e.g., recent precipitation). My results suggest that predation is the only source of activity season mortality that is of demographic importance for these populations. For example, I found no evidence that physiological stress was ever an important source of mortality. Lizards in relatively poor physical condition (i.e., those with small length—corrected mass) did not experience a greater risk of mortality, and survival actually increased during the presumably more stressful late activity season. Mortality rates were also depressed during a drought at one site, despite the poor physical condition of the lizards. Low mortality rates during the late activity season and during drought conditions probably reflect reduced activity of U. stansburiana and their predators. Reduced activity levels discourage predator—prey encounters. Because sources of mortality other than predation appear to be of trivial demographic importance, overall mortality rates can be used to infer relative predation rates. Accordingly, I examined latitudinal variation in mortality rates to address the hypothesis that predation pressure is greater on lower latitude populations of U. stansburiana. Daily mortality rates were not higher among southern populations. Even annual losses to predators do not appear to be greater among lower latitude populations. These results were surprising because U. stansburiana is one of the species for which predation pressure was thought to increase with decreasing latitude. Higher than expected mortality rates in the north may in part be due to longer daily activity periods among northern Uta and their predators. Interestingly, several indirect measures of predation intensity (e.g., tail break frequencies, measures of predator species richness) did increase significantly from north to south. Thus, these less direct measures of predation pressure yielded a misleading impression of latitudinal variation in predation pressure.