Organisms with a complex life cycle are characterized by a life-history shift through metamorphosis and include organisms such as insects and amphibians. They must optimize their use of resources and behaviour across different life stages to maximize their fitness. An interesting question with regard to such life-history shifts is whether growth in the juvenile stage can be compensated for in the adult stage. Here we ask whether emerald damselflies (Lestes sponsa (Hansemann, 1823)) are able to compensate for depressed growth during the juvenile aquatic stage in their terrestrial adult stage. Lestes sponsa emerge at a fixed adult body size, but feed during the adult stage and are thus able to gain mass as adults. We performed a mark–recapture study to answer whether individuals that emerge from metamorphosis with a low mass are able to compensate by subsequent mass gain during the adult stage. Results showed that compensatory mass gain occurred in the adult stage such that small individuals gained more mass than large individuals. We also found that females gained more mass than males. However, individuals that emerged at a low mass still had lower mass as mature adults than individuals that emerged at a high mass, suggesting that compensation was not complete. This suggests that larval ecology and adult fitness are tightly linked and future research should focus more on elucidating the nature of this relationship.
Broggi provided crucial help for the standard metabolic rate experiment, G. Sánchez-Montes for the population genetics analysis, and C. Díaz Paniagua for skeletochronology and stable isotope analysis. I. Gomez-Mestre designed the experiments and supervised the whole process of preparing the manuscript. PermitsL. Hyeun-Ji was given permits to handle animals by the Andalusian state government (certificate nr. EXP-000337). DATA ACCESIBILITYData are archived in an institutional public repository (http://digital.csic.es/handle/10261/171767). RH: Causes of amphibian dwarfism Dwarfism in close continental amphibian populations despite lack of genetic isolation
Amphibian larvae are plastic organisms that can adjust their growth and developmental rates to local environmental conditions. The consequences of such developmental alterations have been studied in detail, both at the phenotypic and physiological levels. While largely unknown, it is of great importance to assess how developmental alterations affect the pigmentation pattern of the resulting metamorphs, because pigmentation is relevant for communication, mate choice, and camouflage and hence influences the overall fitness of the toads. Here we quantify the variation in several aspects of the pigmentation pattern of juvenile spadefoot toads experimentally induced to accelerate their larval development in response to decreased water level. It is known that induced developmental acceleration comes at the cost of reduced size at metamorphosis, higher metabolic rate, and increased oxidative stress. In this study, we show that spadefoot toads undergoing developmental acceleration metamorphosed with a less complex, more homogeneous, darker dorsal pattern consisting of continuous blotches, compared to the more contrasted pattern with segregated blotches and higher fractal dimension in normally developing individuals, and at a smaller size. We also observed a marked effect of population of origin in the complexity of the pigmentation pattern. Complexity of the post-metamorphic dorsal pigmentation could therefore be linked to pre-metamorphic larval growth and development.
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