Alligator lizards have been subject to land use conversion and illegal trade for the past decades, leading them to demographic decline. However, little is known about their demographic traits and natural history, limiting our capabilities to implement successful conservation strategies. We implemented a capture-mark-recapture study of Abronia gramminea in central Veracruz to register demographic traits. We conducted 8 four days visits to our study site to record individuals in the area. Every individual was marked by toe-clipping following the Waichman code and recorded individuals with natural marks (with several toes missing or even missing limbs). Snout-vent length, total length, body mass, capture site, capture height and sex were recorded.
Results/Conclusions
We captured 329 individuals of A graminea from July 2015 to October 2016, 188 males and 109 females resulting in a sex ratio of 1.72:1 which was not statistically different from a 1:1 proportion. For 32 individuals sex could not be determined. Individuals were perching at 3.39±3.35 m above ground. The most common perch species was Crataegus sp., followed by Quercus rugosa and Q. laurina. Total recapture rate was 16.11%, and males were recaptured more frequently than females (9.7% and 6.4% respectively), only two juvenile individuals (0.6%) and no newborns were recaptured. Population is biased towards adults (91.3%) even during birthing season, when 6 newborns were recorded (1.8%) and is followed by juveniles (6.9%). However, this bias is likely due to low detectability of newborns and juveniles because of their cryptic habits and coloration. Birthing season occurred from May to July and litter size varied from 5 to 11 offspring (mean 7.2 ± 1.16), concurring with previous results. Although several demographic traits were recorded, low detectability prevent us to estimate stage specific survival and body growth rate, limiting our power to project demographic dynamics and therefore having a better understanding of population trends in the long term.