Abstract
Assessing carryover effects from the aquatic to the terrestrial stage of pond-breeding amphibians is critical as temperature and hydrologic regimes of temporary ponds continue to be altered as a result of climate change and other stressors. We evaluated carryover effects of hydroperiod length (50–62 days) on amphibian survival, developmental rates, and locomotor performance using a model organism, the wood frog (Rana sylvatica), through aquatic and terrestrial mesocosm experiments with individual tests of locomotor performance. We found that shorter hydroperiods (50 days) had low larval survival (0.44 ± 0.03) compared to the 62-day hydroperiod (0.91 ± 0.09) and increased developmental rates, resulting in smaller sizes at metamorphosis. We did not find evidence of carryover effects on terrestrial survival three months post-metamorphosis with all hydroperiod treatments showing high terrestrial survival (0.88 ± 0.07). However, post-metamorphic frogs from the longer hydroperiod treatments grew faster and larger compared to individuals from shortest hydroperiods and performed significantly better during endurance trials at 18 °C. Disentangling complex carryover effects across multiple life stages in species with high phenotypic plasticity can shed light on the physiological capacity of species to respond to changing environments and inform mechanistic predictions of persistence in the face of anthropogenic stressors.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the National Science Foundation – Graduate Research Fellowship Program (NSF-GRFP; under Grant No. 11086-18.03-1116139) to Cassandra Thompson, the Department of Biological Sciences at Ohio University, and the Ohio University Graduate Student Senate. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation. The aquatic mesocosm setup benefited from an Ohio University 1804 Fund grant awarded to Viorel Popescu. We thank Roxanne Male-Brune and Carl Brune for help with securing wood frog egg masses, Mike Benard for helpful comments on a previous draft of this manuscript, Steve Reilly and Don Miles for helpful advice on designing experiments, and Michael McAvoy for help with identifying a suitable location for aquatic mesocosm facility. We also thank Devon Cottrill, Heidi Bencin, Marcel Weigand, Nick Jordan, Ryan Brown for field assistance and help with data collection, and Ohio University Biological Sciences graduate students for help with terrestrial pen construction. This work was performed under Ohio University IACUC protocol 16-L-027.
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CMT and VDP conceived and designed the experiments. CMT performed the experiments. CMT and VDP analyzed the data. CMT and VDP wrote the manuscript.
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Communicated by Howard Whiteman.
Our study highlights important tradeoffs of aquatic-to-terrestrial carryover effects on the growth, survival, and performance of larval and terrestrial stages of a pond-breeding anuran, the wood frog.
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Thompson, C.M., Popescu, V.D. Complex hydroperiod induced carryover responses for survival, growth, and endurance of a pond-breeding amphibian. Oecologia 195, 1071–1081 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04881-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-021-04881-3