Research

• Rainbow lizard, Agama agama
  My study of the rainbow lizard was undertaken in Kora game reserve, Kenya, together with Thomas Madsen. The main purpose was to describe the social organization of the population. It appears that males that exhibit display colours defend exclusive territories. In these are other males, that never exhibit display colours, tolerated. A report (1) is available.
• Hardun, Agama stellio
  The importance of colours for the social life of rainbow lizards have directed my interest to the hardun. In this species males of some populations are reported to exhibit bright yellow heads that seem to have a role in the defence of territories. In other populations this feature seems to lack. So, does this influence the social organization of the respective populations? So far I have only studied one population, for two weeks on the island of Rhodes with Torbjörn Helin and Mats Olsson. In this population, the males do not exhibit bright yellow heads. A manus (7) has been produced from this study.
• The Common Chameleon, Chameleon chamaeleon
  My interest in chameleons began when I met Mariano Cuadrado, at that time a bird Ph. D. student at out department in Lund. He had a previous interest in chameleons and offered me to join him in a study of a populations, conveniently located close to his home in southern Spain. Our main interest is in describing the social organization of the population. Three publications (6-8) are available. Mariano has since continued to experimentally study different aspects of social signalling in this species. His long term field work, the population has been monitored since 1992, has also yielded data on growth and survival, the analysis of which I am taking part in.
• The common viper, Vipera berus
  I and another of our friends, Thomas Håkansson, have occasionally worked with Thomas Madsen, studying vipers in southern Sweden. My main interest in this work has been to study multiple mating and contemplate why females (and males) should engage in this risky business. My contributions to this project are reported in four publications (2-5).