Effects of temperature on growth, development, and survival of amphibian larvae: macroecological and evolutionary patterns.

Temperature affects the rate of biochemical and physiological processes in amphibians, influencing metamorphic traits. Temperature patterns, as those observed in latitudinal and altitudinal clines, may impose different challenges on amphibians depending on how species are geographically distributed. Moreover, species' response to environmental temperatures may also be phylogenetically constrained.

Roundup Original DI® and thermal stress affect survival, morphology and thermal tolerance in tadpoles of Boana faber (Hylidae, Anura).

In amphibians, stressful environments can lead to accelerated metamorphosis at the expense of total length, resulting in the occurrence of morphological abnormalities. Many studies have linked the occurrence of these phenomena to the pollution of habitats by pesticides and thermal stress. Here, we assessed how exposure to Roundup Original DI® and higher constant temperatures affect the survival of Boana faber tadpoles and estimate the CL5096hs for the population.

Phenology and plasticity can prevent adaptive clines in thermal tolerance across temperate mountains: The importance of the elevation-time axis.

Critical thermal limits (CT and CT) decrease with elevation, with greater change in CT, and the risk to suffer heat and cold stress increasing at the gradient ends. A central prediction is that populations will adapt to the prevailing climatic conditions. Yet, reliable support for such expectation is scant because of the complexity of integrating phenotypic, molecular divergence and organism exposure.

Variation in upper thermal tolerance among 19 species from temperate wetlands.

Communities usually possess a multitude of interconnected trophic interactions within food webs. Their regulation generally depends on a balance between bottom-up and top-down effects. However, if sensitivity to temperature varies among species, rising temperatures may change trophic interactions via direct and indirect effects.

Source of environmental data and warming tolerance estimation in six species of North American larval anurans.

The current global warming scenario has led to a renewed interest in determining which species are more vulnerable to climate change. Hence, it is important to understand which factors can affect estimates of species vulnerability. We determined the critical thermal maxima (CT) for six species of North American anuran larvae and measured the environmental temperatures to which they are exposed during their aquatic stage to estimate their warming tolerance (WT; difference between the critical thermal maximum and the macro- and microhabitat maximum environmental temperatures).

Local divergence of thermal reaction norms among amphibian populations is affected by pond temperature variation.

Although temperature variation is known to cause large-scale adaptive divergence, its potential role as a selective factor over microgeographic scales is less well-understood. Here, we investigated how variation in breeding pond temperature affects divergence in multiple physiological (thermal performance curve and critical thermal maximum [CTmax]) and life-history (thermal developmental reaction norms) traits in a network of Rana arvalis populations. The results supported adaptive responses to face two main constraints limiting the evolution of thermal adaptation.

Swimming with predators and pesticides: how environmental stressors affect the thermal physiology of tadpoles.

To forecast biological responses to changing environments, we need to understand how a species's physiology varies through space and time and assess how changes in physiological function due to environmental changes may interact with phenotypic changes caused by other types of environmental variation. Amphibian larvae are well known for expressing environmentally induced phenotypes, but relatively little is known about how these responses might interact with changing temperatures and their thermal physiology. To address this question, we studied the thermal physiology of grey treefrog tadpoles (Hyla versicolor) by determining whether exposures to predator cues and an herbicide (Roundup) can alter their critical maximum temperature (CTmax) and their swimming speed across a range of temperatures, which provides estimates of optimal temperature (Topt) for swimming speed and the shape of the thermal performance curve (TPC).