Microhabitat use, daily activity pattern and diet of Liolaemus etheridgei in the Andean Polylepis forests of Arequipa, Peru

This study describes the microhabitat use, daily activity pattern and diet of Liolaemus etheridgei Laurent 1998 in the El Simbral and Tuctumpaya Polylepis forests in Arequipa, Peru. El Simbral is a fragmented forest, whereas Tuctumpaya is unfragmented. Our results reveal that L. etheridgei shows no positive selection for any of the microhabitats we identified in Polylepis forests; on the contrary, it selects negatively against Polylepis trees and non-thorny bushes. The daily activity patterns indicate a bimodal pattern with peaks at 9:00-10:59 and 13:00-13:59 h. The diet of L. etheridgei consists mainly of plant material, and the most important animal prey category is Lygaeidae: Hemiptera, which is selected for positively. In particular, microhabitat selection varied for non-thorny bushes, which were selected negatively in the Tuctumpaya population but neither positively nor negatively in the El Simbral population. According to the proportions of plant material found, the L. etheridgei from El Simbral were found to be omnivorous, whereas the Tuctumpaya population washerbivorous. However, the percentage of plant material consumed in the El Simbral population was close to the critical value for herbivory-omnivory. We conclude that the three ecological aspects of L. etheridgei studied here are virtually identical in El Simbral and Tuctumpaya; therefore, this species is not affected significantly by the current fragmentation of forest.