Lieu: Brunoy
Abstract: A population of Italian Wall Lizards (Podarcis sicula) in Croatia has become omnivorous and morphologically distinct from its source population in <30 generations and the newly omnivorous lizards digest plants more efficiently. What has allowed this functional change? Though gut size increases are documented in herbivores, it is not consistently found in these lizards. Patterns of digestive biochemistry and fermentation implicate the lizards’ gut microbes as a main source of this functional change. Microbial genes reveal some of the roles microbes play in their hosts’ nutrient acquisition.
