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Geographic variation in adult and embryonic desiccation tolerance in a terrestrial-breeding frog

View ORCID ProfileT.S. Rudin-Bitterli, View ORCID ProfileJ.P. Evans, View ORCID ProfileN.J. Mitchell
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/314351
T.S. Rudin-Bitterli
1School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
2Centre for Evolutionary Biology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
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  • For correspondence: 21575021@student.uwa.edu.au
J.P. Evans
1School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
2Centre for Evolutionary Biology, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
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N.J. Mitchell
1School of Biological Sciences, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, Australia
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ABSTRACT

Intra-specific variation in the ability of individuals to tolerate environmental perturbations is often neglected when considering the impacts of climate change. Yet this information is potentially crucial for mitigating any deleterious effects of climate change on threatened species. Here we assessed patterns of intra-specific variation in desiccation tolerance in the frog Pseudophryne guentheri, a terrestrial-breeding species experiencing a drying climate. Adult frogs were collected from six populations across a rainfall gradient and their dehydration and rehydration rates were assessed. We also compared desiccation tolerance of embryos and hatchlings originating from within-population parental crosses from four of the six populations, where selection on desiccation tolerance should be especially strong given that embryos cannot move to escape unfavourable microclimates. Embryos were reared on soil at three soil-water potentials, ranging from wet to dry (ψ = −10, −100 & −400 kPa), and their desiccation tolerance was assessed across a range of traits including survival, time to hatch after inundation, wet mass at hatching, hatchling malformations and swimming performance. We found significant and strong patterns of intra-specific variation in almost all traits, both in adults and first generation offspring. Adult frogs exhibited clinal variation in their water balance responses, with populations from drier sites both dehydrating and rehydrating more slowly compared to frogs from more mesic sites. Similarly, desiccation tolerance of embryos and hatchlings was significantly greater in populations from xeric sites. Taken together, our findings suggest that populations within this species will respond differently to the regional reduction in rainfall predicted by climate change models. We emphasise the importance of considering geographic variation in phenotypic plasticity when predicting how species will respond to climate change.

Footnotes

  • Second and final revision in response to comments by Peer Community In Evolutionary Biology

  • https://zenodo.org/record/3514086#.Xawa3ej7RPY

Copyright 
The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 21, 2019.
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Geographic variation in adult and embryonic desiccation tolerance in a terrestrial-breeding frog
T.S. Rudin-Bitterli, J.P. Evans, N.J. Mitchell
bioRxiv 314351; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/314351
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Geographic variation in adult and embryonic desiccation tolerance in a terrestrial-breeding frog
T.S. Rudin-Bitterli, J.P. Evans, N.J. Mitchell
bioRxiv 314351; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/314351

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