Spatial and behavioural segregation between Agama agama and Agama weizholdi living in sympatry in Southern Senegal

Ing. Michal Semrád

Master's thesis

Abstract:

This Master´s thesis is focused on evaluation of sympatry between Agama agama and Agama weidholzi living in Southern Senegal and its aim is to find out similarities and differences of habitat use and behaviour between the observed species. The site of the observation is Toubakouta town that is situated in Southern Senegal in unique nature habitat of Delta river Saloum where both species coexist in sympatry. They live in urban areas side by side which was not previously reported. Daily field monitoring data collection was divided into tracks and performed by sight or binocular. The collected field data were recorded on a paper sheet and GPS coordinates were registered by Geo tracker. Analyses of processed data were performed in Excel 2007, ArcGIS 10.1, and Statistics (version 25.0). We observed 325 individuals in total, 154 were Agama agama and 171 Agama weidholzi. The results indicate that Agama agama can be found in both man-made and natural habitat while Agama weidholzi almost exclusively inhabits man-made habitat. In man-made habitat, A. agama prefers to occupy the tops of walls and roofed walls more frequently compared to A. weidholzi. A. agama does not choose habitat according to the presence of vegetation. If vegetation is present, the height of basal vegetation is lower than in A. weidholzi. The escape direction is mostly upwards. A. weidholzi tends to populate places with the presence of vegetation. The height of basal vegetation is higher than in A. agama. The escape direction is mostly downwards, but there are also significant incidences of escapes upwards and to other side of the wall. Up until now, Agama weidholzi has not been well studied and further research is needed.

Keywords

House Agama, Rainbow Lizard, Gambia Agama, Common Agama, Reptiles of Senegal, Toubakouta, Coexistence of Agama Lizards

Language used: English

Date on which the thesis was submitted / produced: 14. 8. 2020

Thesis defence

• Supervisor: doc. Francisco Ceacero Herrador, Ph.D.
• Reader: David Lastra González, Ing.

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague

Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences

Master programme / field:
Tropical Agriculture / Wildlife Management in the Tropics and Subtropics