Yale research scientist Saúl Domínguez-Guerrero didn't set out to catch "evolution in the act" when he traveled to the Caribbean with a team of Yale researchers a few years ago.
At the time, the team from the lab of evolutionary biologist Martha Muñoz planned to do fieldwork on Caribbean anoles, colorful, tree-dwelling lizards native to warmer regions of the Americas. The team was studying many species of these reptiles as part of a project to determine the role that behavior plays in shaping physiological evolution. Having studied these lizards in the past, they thought they knew what they'd find.
But back in New Haven, their data told an unexpected story.
"Saúl comes into my office one day and says, 'Martha, I'm noticing something weird in the temperature readings, and I think there might be something interesting going on here," recalled Muñoz, an associate professor tenure of ecology and evolutionary biology in Yale's Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Specifically, Domínguez-Guerrero found that that ability of some lizards to withstand blistering temperatures had increased markedly over just a decade, a sign of physiological adaptation.
