Homing, Survivorship, and Overwintering of Larvae in Spotted Salamanders, Ambystoma maculatum

Whitford, Walter G.; Vinegar, Allen

doi:10.2307/1441075

Cited by 63 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Since larval salamander and invertebrate populations fluctuate considerably across years (personal observation), adults would have to assess the abundance of congenerics and predatory invertebrates each year and possibly forego reproduction or travel to a different pond to lay eggs if their initial destinations were inappropriate. Given the philopatry and limited home ranges of A. maculatum (Husting 1965;Whitford and Vinegar 1966;Kleeberger and Werner 1983), this seems relatively improbable. Even so, the differential distribution of A. laterale and A. maculatum with respect to predatory invertebrates cannot be used on its own as evidence for top predator-mediated coexistence in this guild; other unmeasured attributes of the ponds could also have been correlated with differences in their densities.…”

Section: Growth Rates and Their Implications For Intraguild Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A growth/mortality trade-off in larval salamanders and the coexistence of intraguild predators and prey

Yurewicz

2004

Oecologia

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Behavioral and morphological traits often influence a key trade-off between resource acquisition and vulnerability to predation, and understanding trait differences between species can provide critical insight into their interactions with other species and their distributions. Such an approach should enhance our understanding of the criteria for coexistence between species that can interact through both competition and predation (i.e. intraguild predators and prey). I conducted a common garden experiment that revealed strong differences between three guild members (larval salamanders Ambystoma laterale, A. maculatum, and A. tigrinum) in behavior, morphology, and growth in the presence and absence of a shared top predator (the larval dragonfly Anax longipes). All three species also reduced their activity and modified their tail fin depth, tail muscle length, and body length in response to non-lethal Anax. Species that act as intraguild predators were more active and could grow faster than their intraguild prey species, but they also suffered higher mortality in laboratory predation trials with Anax. I also used survey data from natural communities to compare the distribution of Ambystoma species between ponds differing in abiotic characteristics and predatory invertebrate assemblages. An intraguild prey species ( A. maculatum) was found more reliably, occurred at higher densities, and was more likely to persist late into the larval period in ponds with more diverse invertebrate predator assemblages. Taken together, these results indicate that top predators such as Anax may play an important role in influencing intraguild interactions among Ambystoma and ultimately their local distribution patterns.

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Section: Growth Rates and Their Implications For Intraguild Interactionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A growth/mortality trade-off in larval salamanders and the coexistence of intraguild predators and prey

Yurewicz

2004

Oecologia

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“…Environmental conditions strongly influence breeding migrations in other salamander species (Douglas 1979;Semlitsch 1985;Semlitsch and Pechmann 1985), suggesting that such conditions could reduce the probability of successful migration in some years. Skipping breeding opportunities has been previously documented in metamorphic congeners of both sexes (Husting 1965;Whitford and Vinegar 1966;Semlitsch et al 1993), but no other data exist on the frequency of paedomorphic reproduction.…”

Section: Frequency Of Breedingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Maintenance of Polymorphism Promoted by Sex‐specific Fitness Payoffs

Whiteman

1997

Evolution

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“…The breeding migration of spotted salamanders is influenced by a variety of environmental factors, and several studies have provided the detailed descriptions of these migration movement patterns. Namely, high site fidelity (i.e., return to the same wetland location) is observed during spotted salamander annual migrations with males arriving earlier than females and females traveling a greater distance than males (Whitford & Vinegar 1966;Regosin et al 2003;Tennessen & Zamudio 2003;McDonough & Paton 2007). During the time spent in the breeding pond, spotted salamanders are thought to consume little prey (Smallwood 1928;Petranka 1998), thereby making body mass changes a potential correlate of reproductive effort.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Life-history costs of reproductive behaviors in a wetland-breeding amphibian

Strickland

Bahram

Harden

et al. 2014

Journal of Freshwater Ecology

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Studies examining the association between life-history strategies and behavior can help inform our understanding of the fitness consequences of reproductive behaviors. Breeding migrations are common in numerous taxa and often represent an important reproductive cost. We examined body mass changes of spotted salamanders (Ambystoma maculatum) during their seasonal breeding migrations to determine the influence of breeding behaviors on reproductive costs. We sampled salamanders entering and exiting a 0.92-ha ephemeral wetland in the North Carolina Piedmont using a 400-m drift fence completely encircling the wetland. Traps were checked daily during annual breeding migrations in mid-January to early March of 2013 and 2014. The relationship between body mass changes and explanatory factors including sex, duration of stay at wetland, and distance between site entrance and exit were examined using a set of candidate linear mixed models selected a priori and compared using Akaike's information criterion. Female salamanders lost a greater percentage of body mass during the time in the wetland than males as a result of oviposition. Model selection identified duration of stay as the most important predictor of female body mass change with greater duration of stay associated with lower mass loss. In males, percentage mass loss was most closely associated with site entranceÀexit correspondence with greater distance between entrance and exit sites associated with greater mass loss. These data demonstrate both the importance of wetland entranceÀexit sites and duration of stay at the wetland in determining mass change during spotted salamander reproduction and also that these relationships can differ as a function of sex. Taken together, our findings provide a potential link between behavior, life-history cycles, and costs experienced during reproduction.

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Homing, Survivorship, and Overwintering of Larvae in Spotted Salamanders, Ambystoma maculatum

Cited by 63 publications

References 7 publications

A growth/mortality trade-off in larval salamanders and the coexistence of intraguild predators and prey

A growth/mortality trade-off in larval salamanders and the coexistence of intraguild predators and prey

Maintenance of Polymorphism Promoted by Sex‐specific Fitness Payoffs

Life-history costs of reproductive behaviors in a wetland-breeding amphibian

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