A novel larval diet interacts with nutritional stress to modify juvenile behaviors and glucocorticoid responses.

Developmental plasticity can allow the exploitation of alternative diets. While such flexibility during early life is often adaptive, it can leave a legacy in later life that alters the overall health and fitness of an individual. Species of the spadefoot toad genus are uniquely poised to address such carryover effects because their larvae can consume drastically different diets: their ancestral diet of detritus or a derived shrimp diet.