Collared Peccary Wallows are Hubs of Animal Activity and Diversity in a Central American Wet Forest.

Despite research linking peccary wallows to increased amphibian biodiversity in wet tropical forests in Amazonia, wallow use by the broader vertebrate community has been overlooked. We investigated collared peccary ( () ) activity patterns at wallows and used multiple detection methods to assess wallow use by the vertebrate community in a Central American lowland wet forest in northeastern Costa Rica. We found significantly higher vertebrate activity and diversity at wallows compared to the nearby surrounding understory forest.

Climate mediates the trade-offs associated with phenotypic plasticity in an amphibian polyphenism.

Polyphenisms occur when phenotypic plasticity produces morphologically distinct phenotypes from the same genotype. Plasticity is maintained through fitness trade-offs which are conferred to different phenotypes under specific environmental contexts. Predicting the impacts of contemporary climate change on phenotypic plasticity is critical for climate-sensitive animals like amphibians, but elucidating the selective pressures maintaining polyphenisms requires a framework to control for all mechanistic drivers of plasticity.

The role of environmental variation in mediating fitness trade-offs for an amphibian polyphenism.

Fitness trade-offs are a foundation of ecological and evolutionary theory because trade-offs can explain life history variation, phenotypic plasticity, and the existence of polyphenisms. Using a 32-year mark-recapture dataset on lifetime fitness for 1093 adult Arizona tiger salamanders (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum) from a high elevation, polyphenic population, we evaluated the extent to which two life history morphs (aquatic paedomorphs vs. terrestrial metamorphs) exhibited fitness trade-offs in breeding and body condition with respect to environmental variation (e.

Extending the biologging revolution to amphibians: Implantation, extraction, and validation of miniature temperature loggers.

Quantifying ectotherm body temperature is important to understand physiological performance under environmental change. The increasing availability of small, commercially-available animal-borne biologgers increases accessibility to high-quality body temperature data. However, amphibians present several challenges to successful datalogger implantation including small body sizes and physiologically active skin.

Long-term monitoring of tropical alpine habitat change, Andean anurans, and chytrid fungus in the Cordillera Vilcanota, Peru: Results from a decade of study.

The Cordillera Vilcanota in southern Peru is the second largest glacierized range in the tropics and home to one of the largest high-alpine lakes, Sibinacocha (4,860 m). Here, (marbled water frog), (Andean toad), and (marbled four-eyed frog) have expanded their range vertically within the past century to inhabit newly formed ponds created by ongoing deglaciation. These anuran populations, geographically among the highest (5,200-5,400 m) recorded globally, are being impacted by the chytrid fungus (), and the disease it causes, chytridiomycosis.