Inter- and intra-population variability of the protein content of femoral gland secretions from a lacertid lizard - PubMed (original) (raw)

. 2017 Dec;63(6):657-665.

doi: 10.1093/cz/zow113. Epub 2016 Dec 26.

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Inter- and intra-population variability of the protein content of femoral gland secretions from a lacertid lizard

Marco Mangiacotti et al. Curr Zool. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

Femoral glands of male lizards produce waxy secretions that are involved in inter- and intraspecific chemical communication. The main components of these secretions are proteins and lipids, the latter having been extensively studied and already associated to male quality. On the opposite, the composition and role of proteins are nearly unknown, the only available information coming from few studies on iguanids. These studies got the conclusion that proteins might have a communicative function, notably they could signal individual identity. A generalization of these findings requires the extension of protein analysis to other lizard families, and the primary detection of some patterns of individual variability. Using the common wall lizard Podarcis muralis as a model species, the protein fraction of the femoral pore secretions was investigated to provide the first characterization of this component in a lacertid lizard and to explore its source of variability, as a first step to support the hypothesized communicative role. Samples of proteins from femoral secretions were collected from 6 Italian populations and subjected to 1-dimensional electrophoresis. The binary vector of the band presence/absence was used to define the individual profiles. Protein fraction is found to have a structured pattern, with both an individual and a population component. Although the former supports the potential communicative role of proteins, the latter offers a double interpretation, phylogenetic or environmental, even though the phylogenetic effect seems more likely given the climatic resemblance of the considered sites. Further studies are necessary to shed light on both these issues.

Keywords: Podarcis muralis; SDS-PAGE; chemical communication; femoral glands; lizards; proteins.

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Figures

Figure 1

Figure 1

(A) Distribution map of Italian clades of the common wall lizard. The geographic delimitations of the clades follow Salvi et al. (2013). Stars represent the 6 considered populations, from North-West to South-East: Castelseprio (CSP), Lemna (LEM), Viareggio (VIA), Capannori (CAP), Serra San Quirico (SSQ), and Osimo (OSI). (B) Thermal characterization of the sampling sites: bars represent the annual temperature range (minimum of coldest month and maximum of warmest month); mean annual temperature is symbolised by squares. (C) Monthly precipitation variability: bars indicate the difference between the minimum and maximum precipitation of the driest and wettest month, while squares represent the mean monthly precipitation (annual precipitation/12). Climatic data were obtained from

www.worldclim.org

, ver. 1.4.

Figure 2

Figure 2

Schematized protein profiles after gel alignment and band detection. (A) Overall profile obtained by combining all the individual profiles: line thickness is proportional to the frequency of a band in the whole sample. (B) Individual profiles sorted by population of origin.

Figure 3

Figure 3

Principal coordinates analysis of the distance matrix computed on the individual protein patterns. The scores of the first 3 axes are used and the explained variance associated to each axis was reported as percentage. The shape of the symbols is clade-specific: triangles for Tuscan, squares for Marches, and circles for Southern Alp.

Figure 4

Figure 4

Weighted within-site protein profiles. The thickness of the bands is proportional to their frequency in each population.

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