Urban habitats can affect body size and body condition but not immune response in amphibians

Iglesias‐Carrasco, Maider; Martı́n, José; Cabido, Carlos

doi:10.1007/s11252-017-0685-y

Cited by 31 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 53 publications

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“…These findings suggest that habitat quality improved compared with prewar conditions and environmental stress as well as nitrogen pollution decreased in Berlin, despite increasing housing construction and densification of urban infrastructures after war with a construction peak in 1997 (Jefferson & Russel, 2008;Keinath et al, 2020;Lazić et al, 2013;Merckx et al, 2018 to very urban (i.e., densely built-up areas with dense road network), but as well to barely urbanized areas (i.e., sites characterized by arable land, forest or grassland, which should not be confused with developed urban greenspace). Although seemingly counterintuitive, these findings are in accordance with other studies, which reported larger body sizes and lower levels of CFA in urban areas, compared to natural habitats for amphibians and reptiles (French et al, 2018;Hall & Warner, 2017;Iglesias-Carrasco et al, 2017;Winchell et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Superfrogs in the city: 150 year impact of urbanization and agriculture on the European Common Frog

Niemeier

Müller

Struck

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Superfrogs in the city: 150 year impact of urbanization and agriculture on the European Common Frog

Niemeier

Müller

Struck

et al. 2020

Global Change Biology

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“…Furthermore, some other amphibian species, including common green frog ( Pelophylax perezi ), southern leopard frog ( Rana utricularia ), pig frog ( R. grylio ), American bullfrog ( R. catesbeiana ), and eastern narrowmouth toad ( Gastrophryne carolinensis ), have also shown positive morphological and survival responses in suburban areas (Scheffers and Paszkowski , Iglesias‐Carrasco et al. ) and in areas with less terrestrial habitat (Salice et al. ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Indicators of wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) condition in a suburbanizing landscape

2019

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Wood frogs (Lithobates sylvaticus) are threatened by habitat degradation associated with suburbanization. Suburban development near pools may affect larvae with ramifications for population persistence and vitality. We studied larval development and documented key vernal pool and terrestrial characteristics within 1000 m of 43 pools across the suburban development gradient near Bangor, Maine, USA. Specifically, we examined how survival and morphological characteristics (e.g., developmental phenology, condition, body length, and tail length and shape) varied with characteristics at pool and landscape scales. Secondarily, we explored associations between morphology and survival. Differences in tadpole morphology were associated with suburban land development, hydrology, within‐pool vegetation indicative of light availability at the water's surface, and density of pool‐breeding amphibian egg masses. Across all pools, tadpoles had delayed development and were larger in pools with longer hydroperiods, while tadpoles in suburban pools developed earlier and were larger than those in rural pools with comparable hydroperiods. Tadpoles developed later and had longer tails in pools with greater canopy cover. Morphology profiles also differed between rural and suburban sites and among years. Survival in suburban pools was predicted to be 15 times greater than in rural pools, but across all pools (including those at intermediate intensities of suburbanization), survival was not predicted to vary with either morphology or site characteristics. No strong relationship existed between developmental phenology and any condition or size metric. Because rural and suburban tadpoles responded similarly to within‐pool conditions, our results support the need to maintain natural hydrology and vegetation conditions in pools even in developing areas. Although we detected benefits to tadpoles with increasing suburbanization, suburbanization is well known to extirpate breeding populations; thus, it is likely that wood frog population declines associated with suburbanization are responding to stressors beyond the pool at terrestrial life stages.

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“…Previous research exploring the effects of urban habitats on morphology has found mixed results. While some studies find both larger (Liker et al, 2008) and smaller (Murphy et al, 2016) body sizes in urban populations in different animal taxa, others do not find any effect of urbanization on this trait (Iglesias-Carrasco et al, 2017). Similarly, previous research has found that colonizers of anthropogenic habitats show either enhanced (French et al, 2007b;Audet, Ducatez & Lefebvre, 2016) or diminished immunocompetence (Lewis et al, 2013;Iglesias-Carrasco et al, 2016a) compared to their counterparts in natural habitats.…”

Section: Habitat-dependent Morphological Traits and Behavioural Respomentioning

confidence: 91%

“…We measured the immune response just after capturing the individuals to ensure that the response was not influenced by being brought into captivity. The PHA test measures T-cell-dependent immunocompetence in vivo (Lochmiller, Vestey & Boren, 1993), and has been used in many vertebrate species including amphibians (Brown, Shilton & Shine, 2011;Iglesias-Carrasco, Martín & Cabido, 2017). However, recent studies have shown that the PHA-induced swelling might instead be considered as a multifaceted index of the cutaneous immune activity (Salaberria et al, 2013).…”

Section: Habitat-dependent Morphological Traitsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effect of an immune challenge on the anti-predator response of the green Iberian frog (Pelophylax perezi): the influence of urban habitats

Iglesias‐Carrasco

Head

Cabido³

2018

Biological Journal of the Linnean Society

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Previous studies suggest that immune-challenged individuals need to allocate resources to the immune system to combat infection, reducing escape ability and increasing the vulnerability of infected individuals to predators. Such behavioural responses might change in anthropogenic habitats where the balance between predation risk and countering infections can differ from that in natural habitats. We experimentally explored whether fighting an infection has an effect on hiding behaviour in a frog (Pelophylax perezi), and whether frogs from urban ponds respond differently from those from natural forested ponds. Independently of habitat type, we found no evidence for changes in hiding behaviour of male frogs before and after they were immune challenged (injected with lipopolysaccharide) or not (injected with phosphate-buffered saline). We also explored whether immune response (phytohaemagglutinin assay) or morphological traits (head width, body condition, body size and length) were related to variation in hiding time, but we did not find a relationship between the measured traits and behavioural response for males from either habitat. In conclusion, we show that frog anti-predator behaviour is not always affected by an immune challenge and the effect of urban habitats can be weaker than expected, at least in species that could be pre-adapted to the novel environmental conditions.

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Urban habitats can affect body size and body condition but not immune response in amphibians

Cited by 31 publications

References 53 publications

Superfrogs in the city: 150 year impact of urbanization and agriculture on the European Common Frog

Superfrogs in the city: 150 year impact of urbanization and agriculture on the European Common Frog

Indicators of wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) condition in a suburbanizing landscape

Effect of an immune challenge on the anti-predator response of the green Iberian frog (Pelophylax perezi): the influence of urban habitats

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