I need your help finding some obscure references to reptile mutualisms. I am a graduate student working on an independent research project involving reptile mutualisms. Here I have defined a reptile mutualism as any interaction involving a turtle, crocodilian, lizard, snake, or Sphenodon that benefits another organism, whether it be a plant or an animal. With this in mind I grouped my findings so far into 4 categories including pollination, seed dispersal, cleaning, gut symbionts, and “other.” A pollination mutualism would include any reptile that is involved in transport of pollen from one plant to another while it gains a food source, and at the same time increases the plant’s ability to reproduce. One example of this is the lizard, teiradugesii (Lacertidae) drinking nectar in Musschiaaurea (Campanulaceae) (Elvers, 1977). A similar type of mutualism, involving plant reproduction includes seed dispersal. This involves a reptile consuming a fruit, traveling some distance and defecating seeds, still intact and viable. One example of this can be seen in the Florida Box turtle and the fruits of Thrinaxmorrissii, Serenoarepens, and Byrsonimalucida (Hong, 2003). It was found that the seeds of these plants were dispersed several hundred meters from where they were ingested and grew successfully. A well known cleaning mutualism is that of the Green Sea turtle Cheloniamaydas and Thalassomaduperrey, the Hawaiian saddleback wrasse (Zamzow, n.d). The Green Sea turtle’s carapace and plastron are cleaned by the wrasse that gets a meal by ingesting the algae and other small invertebrates living on the turtle. This is an eclectic field, and many examples are likely to be buried in gray literature or otherwise hard to find. I am asking for your help finding all the obscure examples. If you know any mutualisms of reptiles that may fall into these categories or more importantly, if you have any “out of the ordinary” mutualisms, I would very much appreciate to hear about it so I can include it in my research publication. I would like as much information as possible regarding the specific interaction to include in my publication. If you can provide me with where you have seen it recorded or cited that is great, but if not, I would still like to hear about it. Send me anything you’ve got!
Thank you in advance for your help Kayleigh Erazmus mterrapinl...@gmail.com References Elvers, I. (1977).Flower-visiting lizards on Madeira. Notulae Botanicae. 130 231 – 234; Hong, L., Platt, S., & Borg, C. (2003). Seed Dispersal by the Florida Box Turtle (Terrapene carolinabauri) in Pine Rockland Forests of the Lower Florida Keys, United States. Plant Animal Interactions. 539-546. Zamzow, J. (n.d). Cleaning Symbioses Between Hawaiian Reef Fishes and Green Sea Turtles, Cheloniamydas. Proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation