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Developmental plasticity to pond drying has carryover costs on metamorph performance
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Developmental plasticity to pond drying has carryover costs on metamorph performance

Nicholas Wu, Nien-Tse Fuh, Amaël Borzée, Chi‐Shiun Wu, Yeong‐Choy Kam and Ming‐Feng Chuang
Conservation Physiology, Vol.13(1), coaf008
2025
PMID: 39974208
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Published1.08 MBDownloadView
CC BY V4.0 Open Access

Abstract

Biodiversity & Conservation Ecology Environmental Sciences Environmental Sciences & Ecology Life Sciences & Biomedicine Physiology Science & Technology
Increasing variable hydroperiods may leave ectotherms with complex life cycles more vulnerable to the impacts of environmental drying. While developmental plasticity may enable some species to escape drying ponds, this plasticity might result in trade-offs with performance and subsequent fitness in adults. Here, we used rice paddy frogs (Fejervarya limnocharis) to test how pond drying influences the developmental plasticity of tadpoles, and the resulting carryover effects on body size and jumping performance. We predicted that tadpoles under simulated drought conditions (2-0.25 cm depth) compared to low stable water level conditions (0.25 cm depth) would develop faster, and the resulting metamorphs would be smaller and exhibit lower jumping performance. We show that tadpoles in drying conditions had a faster developmental rate than tadpoles in stable low water level treatments. The size of metamorphs from the drying treatment was similar to the high-water treatments (2 cm depth), but maximum jumping distance of individuals from the drying condition was lower than that of the high-water treatment. These results indicate that drying conditions for F. limnocharis increase development rate without a reduction in size at metamorphosis, but with poorer mass-independent locomotor performance, which can potentially impact their survival.

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Domestic collaboration
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3 Agriculture, Environment & Ecology
3.35 Zoology & Animal Ecology
3.35.790 Amphibian Ecology
Web Of Science research areas
Biodiversity Conservation
Ecology
Environmental Sciences
Physiology
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Environment/Ecology
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