Donald B. Miles, Ph.D.

     My current research interests focus on the adaptive significance of locomotory performance in lizards. We are presently employing three avenues of work. The first involves a long-term capture-mark-recapture program for examining the selective significance of locomotory performance. This research is also part of a project to assess spatial and temporal variation in selection acting on morphology and locomotion. Both of these projects are linked by a concurrent study of geographic variation in locomotion and morphology as a means of detecting local adaptation to prevailing environmental conditions. We are also pursuing the change in performance during ontogeny by following individuals over the course of their lives. Second, we are assessing the inter-specific correlations with morphology and locomotion in Sceloporine lizards from the Southwestern Deserts of the U.S. This particular project is directed at identifying key morphological innovations that correlate with the radiation of the Sceloporines as well as affecting sprint speed and other locomotory parameters. Finally, we are investigating the behavioral and social consequences of sprint speed and endurance capacity. My lab is also active in the evolution of lizard life histories, reproductive mode and evolution of sexual dimorphism. This latter project involves a comparison of sexual size dimorphism among 20 + populations of Tropidurus lizards in the Galapagos Islands.

Selected References:

• Miles, D.B., L. Fitzgerald and  H.L. Snell. (1995).  Morphological Correlates of Locomotor Performance in Hatchling Amblyrhynchus cristatus.   Oecologia 103: 261-264.

• Miles, D.B. (1994).  Population Differentiation in Locomotor Performance and the Potential Response of a Terrestrial Organism to Global Environmental Change.  Amer. Zool. 34:  422-436.

• Miles, D.B. (1994).  Contribution of Long-term Ecological Research to Current Issues in the Conservation of Biological Diversity.  Amer. Zool. 34: 367-370.

• Miles, D.B.(1994) Covariation between Morphology and Locomotory Performance in Sceloporine Lizards. In: Lizard Ecology:  Historical and Experimental Perspectives.  L.J. Vitt and E.R. Pianka (eds.)  pp. 207-235.

• Ricklefs, R.E. and D.B. Miles. (1994) Ecological and evolutionary inferences from morphology: An ecological perspective. In Ecomorphology: An Integrated Approach. (Wainwright, P.C. and S.M. Reilly, eds.) Univ. Chicago Press.