A. Oppliger et J. Clobert, REDUCED TAIL REGENERATION IN THE COMMON LIZARD, LACERTA-VIVIPARA, PARASITIZED BY BLOOD PARASITES, Functional ecology, 11(5), 1997, pp. 652-655
1. Many lizards will lose their tail through autotomy as an antipredat
or device even though there must be significant costs during tail rege
neration. 2. Parasites are energetically costly to the host, and may r
educe the rate of cell regeneration. The relation between the presence
of haemogregarines (phylum Sporozoa) and the rate of tail regeneratio
n in the Common Lizard Lacerta vivipara (Jacquin) was examined. 3. Exp
erimentally induced autotomy in parasitized lizards resulted in a sign
ificantly reduced rate of tail regeneration compared with non-parasiti
zed lizards. On the ether hand, tail loss was not associated with an a
bnormal increase of parasite load, suggesting that the physiological s
tress (induced by tail loss) did not cause a decrease in parasite defe
nce.