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CSUSB biology professor part of team examining the impact ecotourism has on animal behavior
BioTropica
Dec. 16, 2019
Breanna Putman, CSUSB assistant professor of biology, co-authored a paper on how ecotourism and the presence of humans affects animal behavior “because animals often perceive humans as predators and, consequently, spend more time on human‐directed antipredator behaviors and less on other fitness‐relevant activities,” according to the article’s abstract.
Putman and her fellow researchers tested whether human clothing color affects how a particular lizard, the water anole, behaves. “We demonstrate that colors ‘displayed’ by perceived predators (i.e., humans) alter antipredator behaviors in water anoles. Clothing choice could have unintended impacts on wildlife, and wearing colors resembling the sexually selected signaling color might enhance tolerance toward humans,” according to the abstract.
Read the complete article at “Clothing color mediates lizard responses to humans in a tropical forest.”
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