| 21. |
- Dahl, Emma
(författare)
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Physiological and Environmental Processes Influencing Growth Strategies in Amphibian Larvae
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cost and benefits of high individual growth rates are likely to vary across different environments leading to geographic differentiation in growth strategies. In ectotherms, habitats constrained by short growing seasons favour rapid growth and development leading to adaptive latitudinal clines in these traits. Geographic variation in growth strategies should be influenced by physiological variation as well as environmental factors, however many of these mechanisms remain largely unexplored. In my thesis, I studied hormonal correlates of growth strategies, and compensatory responses to phenological variation and environmental stress in anuran tadpoles. I tested the hypotheses that fast growing high latitude common frog Rana temporaria tadpoles have higher growth hormone (GH) expression, and low stress hormone (CORT) elevation in response to predator stress. I found no relationship between GH expression and latitude, but CORT response decreased with latitude after 24 hours of predator exposure. Lower CORT response at high latitude can be adaptive as it may enable the tadpoles to maintain high growth in time constrained habitats. I also found that breeding phenology affected latitudinal variation in growth, development and anti-predator strategies. Northern R. temporaria tadpoles were phenotypically more similar to southern tadpoles when breeding occurred early, suggesting that part of the latitudinal variation is plastic and affected by yearly variation in phenology. When time stress was manipulated by delaying hatching, tadpoles were able to compensate by increasing their development and growth during the larval stage, decreasing the cost of the delayed development. In the final study, I found that northern tadpoles showed stronger compensatory growth during the larval stage than southern tadpoles after being delayed by low food, however, temperature manipulation did not induce differences in the compensatory responses. In general, my results highlight the roles of both environmental and genetic variation in determining individual growth strategies.
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| 22. |
- Dahl, Emma, et al.
(författare)
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Time constraints and flexibility of growth strategies : Geographic variation in catch-up growth responses in amphibian larvae
- 2012
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Ingår i: Journal of Animal Ecology. - : Wiley. - 0021-8790 .- 1365-2656. ; 81:6, s. 1233-1243
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- 1. As size is tightly associated with fitness, compensatory strategies for growth loss can be vital for restoring individual fitness. However, immediate and delayed costs of compensatory responses may prevent their generalization, and the optimal strategy may depend on environmental conditions. Compensatory responses may be particularly important in high-latitude habitats with short growing seasons, and thus, high-latitude organisms might be more efficient at compensating after periods of unfavourable growth conditions than low-latitude organisms. 2. We investigated geographical differences in catch-up growth strategies of populations of the common frog (Rana temporaria) from southern and northern Sweden in two factorial common garden experiments involving predation risk and two different causes of growth arrest (nutritional stress and low temperatures) to evaluate how the compensatory strategies can be affected by context-dependent costs of compensation. Larval and metamorphic traits, and post-metamorphic performance were used as response variables. 3. Only northern tadpoles exposed to low food completely caught up in terms of metamorphic size, mainly by extending the larval period. Low food decreased survival and post-metamorphic jumping performance in southern, but not in northern tadpoles, suggesting that northern tadpoles have a better ability to compensate after periods of restricted food. 4. Both northern and southern tadpoles were able to metamorphose at the same size as control tadpoles after being exposed to low temperatures, indicating that consequences of variation in temperature and food availability differed for tadpoles. However, the combination of low temperatures and predation risk reduced survival in both southern and northern tadpoles. Also, predation risk decreased energy storage in both experiments. 5. Our results highlight the influence of climatic variation and the type of stressor as selective factors shaping compensatory strategies.
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| 23. |
- Dijk, Ben, et al.
(författare)
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Is one defence enough? : Disentangling the relative importance of morphological and behavioural predator-induced defences
- 2016
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Ingår i: Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 0340-5443 .- 1432-0762. ; 70:2, s. 237-246
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many organisms show predator-induced behavioural and morphological phenotypic plasticity. These defence mechanisms are often expressed simultaneously. To estimate the relative importance of these two defences, we conducted a laboratory experiment using tadpoles of the common frog (Rana temporaria) as prey and Aeshna dragonfly larvae as predators. We first raised tadpoles in the presence and absence of caged predators to induce differences in defensive morphology, and then conducted free ranging predator trials in environments that were either with or without the presence of predation cues to induce differences in defensive behaviour. This 2 x 2 design allowed us to separate the effects of inducible morphology from inducible behaviour. Caged predators induced deeper bodies and tailfins and reduced activity levels in tadpoles. The time to first capture was shortest in tadpoles without morphological or behavioural defences. Tadpoles with a behavioural defence had a significantly longer time to first capture. Tadpoles with only antipredator morphology tended to have a longer time to first capture as compared to those without any induced defences. This treatment also had a higher number of injured tadpoles as compared to other treatments, suggesting that inducible morphology facilitates predator escape due to the 'lure effect'. However, tadpoles with both behavioural and morphological defences did not have a longer time to first capture as compared to tadpoles with only morphological or behavioural induced defences. Our results suggest that both behavioural and morphological antipredator responses contribute to reduced capture efficiency by predators, but their simultaneous expression did not have any additive effect to the time of first capture and survival, and that the morphology response is most effective when tadpoles are active.
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| 24. |
- Egea-Serrano, Andres, et al.
(författare)
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Multifarious selection through environmental change : acidity and predator-mediated adaptive divergence in the moor frog (Rana arvalis)
- 2014
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences. - : The Royal Society. - 0962-8452 .- 1471-2954. ; 281:1780
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmental change can simultaneously cause abiotic stress and alter biological communities, yet adaptation of natural populations to co-changing environmental factors is poorly understood. We studied adaptation to acid and predator stress in six moor frog (Rana arvalis) populations along an acidification gradient, where abundance of invertebrate predators increases with increasing acidity of R. arvalis breeding ponds. First, we quantified divergence among the populations in anti-predator traits (behaviour and morphology) at different rearing conditions in the laboratory (factorial combinations of acid or neutral pH and the presence or the absence of a caged predator). Second, we evaluated relative fitness (survival) of the populations by exposing tadpoles from the different rearing conditions to predation by free-ranging dragonfly larvae. We found that morphological defences (relative tail depth) as well as survival of tadpoles under predation increased with increasing pond acidity (under most experimental conditions). Tail depth and larval size mediated survival differences among populations, but the contribution of trait divergence to survival was strongly dependent on prior rearing conditions. Our results indicate that R. arvalis populations are adapted to the elevated predator pressure in acidified ponds and emphasize the importance of multifarious selection via both direct (here: pH) and indirect (here: predators) environmental changes.
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| 25. |
- Ermold, Friederike
(författare)
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Climate change time machine : Adaptation to 30 years of warming in the Baltic Sea
- 2016
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Earth mean surface temperature has increased by 1 °C since the industrial revolution, and this has already had considerable effects on animal and plant species. Ecological responses to the warming climate – often facilitated via phenotypic plasticity – are ubiquitous. However, even though evolution can occur rapidly there are only few examples of genetic adaptation to climate change.In my thesis, I used a near-natural system to study if and how organisms have adapted to 30 years of warming, and how this has affected competitive species interactions. I investigated Baltic Sea populations of the aquatic snails Galba truncatula and Theodoxus fluviatilis, which had been subjected to cooling water discharge from power plants, resulting in water temperatures 4 to 10 °C higher than in the surrounding sea.G. truncatula had high upper thermal limits and large acclimation potential. This plasticity may have helped the species to survive under the new conditions, allowing evolution through natural selection to take place. I found that the populations of the two thermal origins had diverged in SNP markers associated with warmer temperature, whereas divergence in selectively neutral markers was mainly related to geographical distance. Adaptation occurred from standing genetic variation, emphasizing the importance of genetic diversity and population size in enabling the persistence of populations. Changes in thermal sensitivity of growth and survival were subtle yet significant, and complied with theoretical models of thermal adaptation in ectotherms. At the community level, pre-adaptation to warmer conditions aided the native T. fluviatilis when competing with the alien Potamopyrgus antipodarum. However, interspecific competition limited the snails most in those traits favored under warming, highlighting the challenge of adapting to different selecting forces during global change.The persistence of species and populations under climate change depends on several factors - plasticity allowing for initial survival, evolvability in allowing the genetic changes, and species interactions affecting the new ecological niches. The results of my thesis indicate that persistence under climate change is possible when these factors align, but the relative roles of ecology and plasticity may explain why there are so few observed instances of evolution in response to climate change.
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| 26. |
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| 30. |
- Fisher, Matthew C., et al.
(författare)
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Development and worldwide use of non-lethal, and minimal population-level impact, protocols for the isolation of amphibian chytrid fungi
- 2018
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Ingår i: Scientific Reports. - : NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP. - 2045-2322. ; 8
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Parasitic chytrid fungi have emerged as a significant threat to amphibian species worldwide, necessitating the development of techniques to isolate these pathogens into culture for research purposes. However, early methods of isolating chytrids from their hosts relied on killing amphibians. We modified a pre-existing protocol for isolating chytrids from infected animals to use toe clips and biopsies from toe webbing rather than euthanizing hosts, and distributed the protocol to researchers as part of the BiodivERsA project RACE; here called the RML protocol. In tandem, we developed a lethal procedure for isolating chytrids from tadpole mouthparts. Reviewing a database of use a decade after their inception, we find that these methods have been applied across 5 continents, 23 countries and in 62 amphibian species. Isolation of chytrids by the non-lethal RML protocol occured in 18% of attempts with 207 fungal isolates and three species of chytrid being recovered. Isolation of chytrids from tadpoles occured in 43% of attempts with 334 fungal isolates of one species (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) being recovered. Together, these methods have resulted in a significant reduction and refinement of our use of threatened amphibian species and have improved our ability to work with this group of emerging pathogens.
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