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all news published after June 7, 2010. Dartmouth College Office
of Public Affairs • Press Release Posted 5/10/10 • Media
Contact: Office of Public Affairs (603) 646-3661 By using entire
islands as experimental laboratories, two Dartmouth biologists
have performed one of the largest manipulations of natural
selection ever conducted in a wild animal population. Their
results, published online on May 9 by the journal Nature, show
that competition among lizards is more important than predation
by birds and snakes when it comes to survival of the fittest
lizard. Podcast: Lizards and Evolution "When Tennyson wrote that
nature is 'red in tooth and claw', I think the image in his head
was something like a Discovery Channel version of a lion chasing
down a gazelle" said Ryan Calsbeek, an assistant professor of
biology at Dartmouth College and a co-author of the study.
"While that may often be the case, intense natural selection can
also arise through com