The power of the seasons: rainfall triggers parental care in poison frogs

The quality of breeding sites is of great importance for the reproductive success and accordingly the fitness of many animal species. Hence, individuals should decide carefully where to rear their offspring. Often parents have to account for multiple characteristics of habitat quality at once, which in turn might change over time. Specimens confronted with such variability may evolve the ability to display context-dependant decision plasticity. Anuran amphibians breeding in ephemeral pools largely face two risks for their offspring: desiccation and predation. The Neotropical poison frog Ranitomeya variabilis deposits both eggs and tadpoles in phytotelmata. These small tadpole nurseries lower the risk of offspring predation. However, because most poison frog tadpoles are cannibalistic, even these pools need to be surveyed for predators, and parents tend to avoid deposition with conspecifics. We tested if this avoidance behaviour does change in parental R. variabilis depending on seasonal circumstances. Over several months we provided the frogs the option to deposit their eggs or tadpoles in pools that did and did not contain chemical cues of cannibalistic conspecifics, respectively. During the rainy season, frogs strongly avoided conspecific cues for both eggs and tadpoles. Anyway, with the change to the dry season, parental preferences changed such that parent frogs were more likely to deposit tadpoles (but not eggs) in pools containing cues of conspecific tadpoles. We suggest that R. variabilis, a species that typically isolates its cannibalistic offspring, has evolved a plastic feeding behaviour with regard to the risk of phytotelmata desiccation. We interpret that parents provide older tadpoles with younger ‘trophic’ tadpoles in order to accelerate their development and save them from impending desiccation.     

Evolution of parental care in dart poison frogs (Amphibia: Anura: Dendrobatidae)

Dendrobatid frogs perform a unique mode of parental care, ranging from egg attendance and tadpole transport to tadpole feeding. It is hypothesized that a behaviour in which the egg attending parent remains with the cluch is the most primitive condition. In more advanced forms or parental care, the male is able to attend several clutches of eggs. Tadpole attendance and feeding, finally, started as deceit; the male induced the female to lay eggs into a bromeliad leaf axil already occupied by a larva. Costs and benefits of the different modes of parental care and possible alternative reproductive tactics are discussed.     

Offering offspring as food to cannibals: oviposition strategies of Amazonian poison frogs (Dendrobates ventrimaculatus)

Species utilizing distinct resources for offspring production often show plasticity in reproductive strategies as a function of resource quality. For species using ephemeral pools, strategies are mainly shaped by a time constraint related to pool stability, resource availability and the colonizing community. We studied reproductive strategies in Amazonian poison frogs (Dendrobates ventrimaculatus) that are characterized by oviposition in distinct, small and resource-limited water bodies in leaf axils of plants and the transport of newly hatched tadpoles on the back of males to similar water bodies. Cannibalism of eggs by tadpoles was found to be the main cause of egg mortality. Typically, at the end of the rainy season new clutches of eggs were deposited in water bodies already containing a tadpole. Manipulation of the available number of water bodies showed that this observation did not result from resource limitation. We conclude that D. ventrimaculatus has a plastic reproductive strategy that includes provisioning its tadpoles with fertilized eggs as a function of desiccation risk of water bodies housing its offspring. Provisioning behavior is expected to increase developmental rate and, therefore, chances of metamorphosis for tadpoles that hatched towards the end of the rainy season. The plastic food provisioning strategy may be an important evolutionary link to bi-parental and female care with development of obligate unfertilized egg provisioning in the genus Dendrobates.     

Social and environmental influences on egg size evolution in frogs

The reproductive strategies of frogs are highly diverse, but analysis of these strategies in a phylogenetic context has lagged behind other taxa. Here we investigate associations between aspects of parental care and egg size in a phylogenetic context. We obtained data on egg size and parental care strategies in various species of frogs from the scientific literature. We developed a phylogenetic supertree of frogs by combining the results of multiple phylogenetic analyses using matrix representation parsimony. We used phylogenetic pairwise comparisons to investigate the correlation between various forms of parental care and egg size across the order Anura. We also investigated correlations between tadpole carnivory and egg size, and phytotelm breeding and egg size. We also investigated the association of egg size with several environmental factors. Parental care, male parental care, direct development, stream breeding and montane breeding habitats were all associated with large egg size. Female care (in species with trophic egg feeding), carnivory, use of small pools (phytotelmata) and use of temporary pools were not associated with egg size.     

Hierarchical decision‐making balances current and future reproductive success

Parental decisions in animals are often context‐dependent and shaped by fitness trade‐offs between parents and offspring. For example, the selection of breeding habitats can considerably impact the fitness of both offspring and parents, and therefore, parents should carefully weigh the costs and benefits of available options for their current and future reproductive success. Here, we show that resource‐use preferences are shaped by a trade‐off between parental effort and offspring safety in a tadpole‐transporting frog. In a large‐scale in situ experiment, we investigated decision strategies across an entire population of poison frogs that distribute their tadpoles across multiple water bodies. Pool use followed a dynamic and sequential selection process, and transportation became more efficient over time. Our results point to a complex suite of environmental variables that are considered during offspring deposition, which necessitates a highly dynamic and flexible decision‐making process in tadpole‐transporting frogs.     

Cannibalistic Interactions Resulting from Indiscriminate Predatory Behavior in Tadpoles of Poison Frogs (Anura: Dendrobatidae)1

Poison frogs in the genus Dendrobates have very small clutch sizes (2–6 eggs among species for which there are data) and typically transport their tadpoles singly to small phytotelmata, such as bromeliad tanks, leaf axils, fallen fruit capsules, and treeholes. Tadpoles of many species are predaceous, consuming larvae of insects that use the same microhabitat for breeding, such as giant damselflies and mosquitoes. Previous studies and observations on the behavior of poison frog tadpoles led us to question whether tadpoles might be cannibalistic. We studied a population of Dendrobates castaneoticus in lowland rainforest in Pará, Brazil; additional data were collected on Dendrobates auratus in Nicaragua. At the study site in Brazil, we established a grid of 40 Brazil nut capsules, the microhabitat used by D. castaneoticus for tadpole deposition. Of 42 tadpoles deposited during the 55 days of the study, 20 were killed or died; 16 of these were presumably killed by conspecific tadpoles. Growth rate and time to metamorphosis was higher among tadpoles that consumed three or more tadpoles or relatively large larvae of the mosquito Trichoprosopon digitatum, a colonist of newly opened Brazil nut capsules. We propose that selection has favored the development of predatory behavior in poison frog tadpoles primarily as a mechanism to eliminate predators from the small phytotelmata in which they develop and that cannibalism is a secondary outcome of this behavior. Predatory behavior also provides tadpoles with a source of food, which is frequently limited in these microhabitats. Additional studies of the biology of tadpoles of other species of Dendrobates are needed to determine the evolution of predatory and cannibalistic behavior in the clade.     

Calling is an honest indicator of paternal genetic quality in poison frogs

Several competing hypotheses have been put forward to explain why females of many species mate preferentially with males possessing the most conspicuous signals (e.g., ornaments, displays, or songs). We performed a laboratory experiment using two species of poison frogs, Dendrobates leucomelas and Epipedobates tricolor, to test the hypothesis that male calling performance is an honest indicator of parental quality. Our analyses are based on data from behavioral observations of mating activities of captive-reared individuals (and their offspring) that were housed in terraria for four consecutive breeding seasons. Male mating success increased with male calling rate and chirp duration in both species, suggesting that females preferred males with more elaborate calls. Because calling performance improved with age in D. leucomelas, female poison frogs that prefer males with more elaborate calls in the wild may end up mating with older males that have already proven their ability to survive. Females that mated with good callers obtained higher quality offspring. Eggs fertilized by males with high calling rates and long chirp durations had higher hatching success and produced tadpoles that were more likely to metamorphose into surviving frogs. As a consequence, females that mated with males with high calling performance obtained more surviving offspring per egg, compared to females that mated with poor callers. Collectively, our findings comply with the notion that female poison frogs prefer to mate with good callers because calling performance is a reliable predictor of offspring quality. The possible influence of maternal allocation and reasons for the strong effect size compared to previous studies are discussed.     

Terrestrial reproduction and parental care drive rapid evolution in the trade-off between offspring size and number across amphibians

The trade-off between offspring size and number is central to life history strategies. Both the evolutionary gain of parental care or more favorable habitats for offspring development are predicted to result in fewer, larger offspring. However, despite much research, it remains unclear whether and how different forms of care and habitats drive the evolution of the trade-off. Using data for over 800 amphibian species, we demonstrate that, after controlling for allometry, amphibians with direct development and those that lay eggs in terrestrial environments have larger eggs and smaller clutches, while different care behaviors and adaptations vary in their effects on the trade-off. Specifically, among the 11 care forms we considered at the egg, tadpole and juvenile stage, egg brooding, male egg attendance, and female egg attendance increase egg size; female tadpole attendance and tadpole feeding decrease egg size, while egg brooding, tadpole feeding, male tadpole attendance, and male tadpole transport decrease clutch size. Unlike egg size that shows exceptionally high rates of phenotypic change in just 19 branches of the amphibian phylogeny, clutch size has evolved at exceptionally high rates in 135 branches, indicating episodes of strong selection; egg and tadpole environment, direct development, egg brooding, tadpole feeding, male tadpole attendance, and tadpole transport explain 80% of these events. By explicitly considering diversity in parental care and offspring habitat by stage of offspring development, this study demonstrates that more favorable conditions for offspring development promote the evolution of larger offspring in smaller broods and reveals that the diversity of parental care forms influences the trade-off in more nuanced ways than previously appreciated.

What selective pressures alter the tradeoff between offspring size and number? A phylogenetic comparative approach shows that amphibians with direct development and those that lay eggs in terrestrial environments have larger eggs and smaller clutches, while different care behaviours and adaptations vary in their effects on the tradeoff.     

The effects of cannibalism on Amazonian poison frog egg and tadpole deposition and survivorship in Heliconia axil pools

This study investigated the influence of cannibalism on egg and larval mortality, and on the deposition strategies of adults, in a tropical anuran breeding in very small leaf axil pools. Patterns of egg and tadpole deposition and mortality in the Amazonian poison frog, Dendrobates ventrimaculatus, were monitored in rainforest near Pompeya in Sucumbios Province, Ecuador. Oviposition and tadpole deposition typically ocurred in leaf axils of Heliconia plants. Pools typically received more than one oviposition. Egg survivorship was low, and significantly lower when eggs were deposited in pools with large tadpoles, indicating that cannibalism is an important source of mortality. Tadpole survivorship was also associated with the presence of other tadpoles: most pools ended with only one surviving tadpole, regardless of the number of tadpoles deposited in the pool. Egg deposition was signifcantly less likely for pools that had a tadpole in them, suggesting that adults can detect the presence of tadpoles and avoid ovipositing in pools that contain them. This hypothesis was tested with a series of pool choice experiments, which revealed that D. ventrimaculatus avoid placing either eggs or tadpoles into a pool which contains a large tadpole. Several hypotheses which could explain multiple deposition in this species are discussed. Received: 14 September 1998 / Accepted: 25 January 1999     

Tadpole transport logistics in a Neotropical poison frog: indications for strategic planning and adaptive plasticity in anuran parental care

Introduction

Individuals should aim to adjust their parental behaviours in order to maximize the success of their offspring but minimize associated costs. Plasticity in parental care is well documented from various bird, mammal and fish species, whereas amphibians were traditionally assumed as being highly instinct-bound. Therefore, little is known about ‘higher’ cognitive abilities of amphibians, such as strategic planning and behavioural flexibility. Dendrobatid frogs have evolved a remarkable diversity of parental behaviours. The most noticeable of these behaviours is tadpole transport, which is obligatory in almost all species. Nonetheless, there is limited knowledge about spatial and temporal patterns of tadpole transport and the possible existence of behavioural plasticity on the individual level. In this study, we investigated correlates of tadpole transport behaviour in a natural population of the dendrobatid frog Allobates femoralis during five years.

Results

Tadpole transport was predominantly observed during morning hours. Although tadpoles were carried almost exclusively by males (N?=?119), we also observed ten females performing this task. The parentage analysis revealed that in all cases females transported their own offspring. In contrast, four tadpole-carrying males were not the genetic fathers of the larvae they were transporting. The average clutch size of 20 eggs and our observation of an average of 8 tadpoles on the back of transporting individuals indicate that frogs do not carry entire clutches at once, and/or that they distribute their larvae across several water bodies. Contrary to the predictions from a hypothetical random search for deposition sites, the number of transported tadpoles was higher in males that travelled over longer distances.

Conclusions

Our results suggest a strong selective pressure on males to shift the time invested in tadpole transport to periods of low intra-specific competition. The number of tadpoles on the back of the males significantly correlated with displacement distance from the respective home territories, indicating a strategic non-random tadpole transport rather than random search for suitable tadpole deposition sites during tadpole transport. The observation of females who occasionally transported larvae supports the prevalence of adaptive plasticity in parental behaviours even in a species with a rather low level of parental care.

     

Female–female aggression is linked to food defence in a poison frog

Habitat occupancy by territorial animals is expected to depend on the distribution of critical resources. Knowledge on female territoriality is scarce, but it has been suggested as a mechanism to defend limited resources for reproduction. A previous study showed female intrasexual aggression to be associated with territorial behaviour in the strawberry poison frog Oophaga pumilio, a diurnal aposematic species with complex maternal care. Here, we investigate the link between spatial distribution of resources important for reproduction and female distribution and behaviour. We observed focal females in their natural habitat in Costa Rica, and recorded the distribution of ecological predictor variables in a grid system. We used the data for calculating home range and territory sizes and for connecting female habitat use to the distribution of potential resources by computing spatial habitat occupancy models. Even though we found females to occupy large home ranges, they were highly aggressive towards other females only inside a small part of their home range, here termed core area. Among the ecological factors, the sustained abundance of ants (main food item of the frogs), the presence of leaf litter and suitable rearing sites for tadpoles predicted female site occupancy patterns. The number of ants per grid was twice as high in the core areas compared to the rest of the female home ranges. Our results suggest that female spacing behaviour is principally driven by the spatial distribution of its main food resource, but that hiding places (leaf litter) and tadpole‐rearing sites also play a role. The defence of areas with sustainably high abundance of ants could be relevant, as egg production and maternal care are energetically highly demanding in this prolonged‐breeding species. Regarding the link between resource defence and maternal care, the reproductive strategy of female strawberry poison frogs resembles that of the females of small mammals comprising same‐sex competition for food and high investment in producing and rearing young.     

Geographic shifts in the effects of habitat size on trophic structure and decomposition

Habitat size is known to affect community structure and ecosystem function, but few studies have examined the underlying mechanisms over sufficient size gradients or in enough geographic contexts to determine their generality. Our goal in this study was to determine if the relationship between habitat size and leaf decomposition varied across geographic sites, and which factors may be driving the differences. We conducted replicated observations in a coastal forest in Brazil, and in rainforests in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico. We used leaf litter decomposition and macroinvertebrate composition in bromeliad phytotelmata of varying sizes to determine the relationships between habitat size, trophic structure and decomposition over a wide geographical range. We experimentally disentangled the effects of site and litter quality by quantifying invertebrate control of decomposition of a native and a transplanted litter type within one site. We found that the relationship between bromeliad size and decomposition rates differed among study sites. In rainforests in Costa Rica and Puerto Rico, decomposition was strongly linked to macroinvertebrate trophic structure, which varies with bromeliad size, driving strong bromeliad size‐decomposition relationships. However, in Brazil there was no relationship between bromeliad size and decomposition. Our manipulative experiment suggests that within coastal forest in Brazil, the poor quality of native litter resulted in little invertebrate control of decomposition. Furthermore, the key detritivore in this site builds a predator‐resistant case, which likely prevented effects of bromeliad size on trophic structure from being transmitted to decomposition even when litter quality was increased. We conclude that differences in both leaf litter quality and macroinvertebrate traits among sites determine the link between decomposition and macroinvertebrates, and consequently the decomposition‐bromeliad size relationship. These results show that the response of decomposition to habitat size is context‐dependent, and depends on which component of the food web is the main driver of the function.     

Specialized breeding in plants affects diversification trajectories in Neotropical frogs

Many animals breed exclusively in plants that accumulate rainwater (phytotelma; e.g., bromeliad, bamboo, fruit husk, and tree hole), to which they are either physiologically or behaviorally specialized for this microhabitat. Of the numerous life-history modes observed in frogs, few are as striking or potentially consequential as the transition from pond- or stream-breeding to the deposition of eggs or larvae in phytotelmata. Such specialization can increase offspring survivorship due to reduced competition and predation, representing potential ecological opportunity for adaptive radiation, yet few lineages of phytotelma-breeding frogs appear to have diversified extensively after such a transition, at least in the New World. We use a phylogeny of Neotropical frogs and data on breeding microhabitat to understand the evolutionary transitions involved with specialized phytotelma-breeding. First, we find that phytotelma-breeding is present in at least 168 species in 10 families of frogs. Across the phylogeny, we estimate 14 origins of phytotelma-breeding and 115 reversals, showing that phytotelma-breeding is a highly labile character. Second, phytotelma-breeding lineages overall have higher net diversification than nonphytotelma-breeding ones. This specialization represents an ecological opportunity resulting in increased diversification in most families with phytotelma-breeding lineages, whereas phytotelma-breeding toads have restricted diversification histories.     

Factors influencing tadpole deposition site choice in a frog with male parental care: An experimental field study

Parents have evolved a variety of strategies to minimize risks to their offspring, including complex choices regarding suitable rearing sites, based on abiotic and biotic factors, which differentially affect offspring survival. Because availability and quality of these sites are variable, parents may have to choose between immediately available lower‐quality rearing sites or extended search time. In some frog species with larval transport, parents are known to select bodies of water that are free of predators, cannibalistic tadpoles, or intraspecific competitors for larval deposition and rearing sites. We tested whether abiotic factors and the presence of predators and conspecific tadpoles affect tadpole deposition behavior in a population of smooth guardian frog, Limnonectes palavanensis, on the island of Borneo. Females lay eggs on land and males guard them until they hatch; after hatching, tadpoles climb onto the male's back and are subsequently transported to small pools of water on the forest floor, which are scarce and patchily distributed. We estimated the abundance of natural tadpole rearing sites in our study area and conducted experiments using artificial pools to test whether abiotic characteristics of these pools affect the probability of larval deposition. We also performed choice experiments to test whether males of L. palavanensis avoid pools with conspecific tadpoles or predators. Lastly, we tested whether the tadpoles of this species exhibit cannibalism. The abundance of natural deposition sites was low, and males readily used artificial pools for tadpole deposition. Males were less likely to deposit tadpoles in artificial pools located in steep areas, and males did not avoid depositing tadpoles in pools with conspecifics or with experimentally introduced predators. Males exhibited clutch‐partitioning behavior, dividing tadpoles between adjacent artificial pools. Pool availability, rather than the presence of potential competitors or predators in a pool, affects tadpole deposition decisions in this species.     

Egg sac damage and previous egg sac production influence truncated parental investment in the wolf spider,Pardosa milvina

Life history theory predicts that iteroparous animals adaptively partition reproductive effort between current and future reproduction. When rearing costs of current offspring exceed the potential benefits, parental care should be terminated and deferred toward future reproduction. We tested two related predictions that follow from life history theory: (a) parents should be sensitive to offspring viability and withhold parental care if offspring survival probability drops and future reproductive opportunities are likely, and (b) parents should be less sensitive to offspring survival probability when future reproduction is unlikely and maximize parental care late in life. The wolf spider, Pardosa milvina, demonstrates extensive parental care; however, they may also abandon or cannibalize their egg sacs. We tested the effects of egg sac damage and production of a previous egg sac on egg sac abandonment and cannibalism decisions. Among four egg sac groups (1st egg sac intact, 1st egg sac damaged, 2nd egg sac intact, 2nd egg sac damaged), we daily monitored egg sac abandonment and cannibalism and measured differences in egg sac searching, protection, and grooming among removed and damaged egg sacs (N = 116 with 1st egg sac and 88 with 2nd egg sac). Females with first egg sacs abandoned and cannibalized damaged egg sacs significantly more compared to unmanipulated egg sacs; however, females with second egg sacs were insensitive to egg sac damage. Females also spent significantly more time protecting second egg sacs compared to first egg sacs and groomed damaged egg sacs significantly more than undamaged. These results support the general predictions of life history theory that indicate that abandonment and cannibalism should decrease with diminished future reproductive potential and that parents should be less sensitive to indicators of offspring survival probability late in life.     

The pay‐offs of maternal care increase as offspring develop,favouring extended provisioning in an egg‐feeding frog

Offspring quantity and quality are components of parental fitness that cannot be maximized simultaneously. When the benefits of investing in offspring quality decline, parents are expected to shift investment towards offspring quantity (other reproductive opportunities). Even when mothers retain complete control of resource allocation, offspring control whether to allocate investment to growth or development towards independence, and this shared control may generate parent–offspring conflict over the duration of care. We examined these predictions by, in a captive colony, experimentally removing tadpoles of the strawberry poison frog (Oophaga pumilio) from the mothers that provision them with trophic eggs throughout development. Tadpoles removed from their mothers were no less likely to survive to nutritional independence (i.e. through metamorphosis) than were those that remained with their mothers, but these offspring were smaller at metamorphosis and were less likely to survive to reach adult size, even though they were fed ad libitum. Tadpoles that remained with their mothers developed more slowly than those not receiving care, a pattern that might suggest that offspring extracted more care than was in mothers’ best interests. However, the fitness returns of providing care increased with offspring development, suggesting that mothers would be best off continuing care until tadpoles initiated metamorphosis. Although the benefits of parental investment in offspring quality are often thought to asymptote at high levels, driving parent–offspring conflict over weaning, this assumption may not hold over natural ranges of investment, with selection on both parents and offspring favouring extended durations of parental care.     

Environmental control of the microfaunal community structure in tropical bromeliads

Ecological communities hosted within phytotelmata (plant compartments filled with water) provide an excellent opportunity to test ecological theory and to advance our understanding of how local and global environmental changes affect ecosystems. However, insights from bromeliad phytotelmata communities are currently limited by scarce accounts of microfauna assemblages, even though these assemblages are critical in transferring, recycling, and releasing nutrients in these model ecosystems. Here, we analyzed natural microfaunal communities in leaf compartments of 43 bromeliads to identify the key environmental filters underlying their community structures. We found that microfaunal community richness and abundance were negatively related to canopy openness and vertical height above the ground. These associations were primarily driven by the composition of amoebae and flagellate assemblages and indicate the importance of bottom‐up control of microfauna in bromeliads. Taxonomic richness of all functional groups followed a unimodal relationship with water temperature, peaking at 23–25°C and declining below and above this relatively narrow thermal range. This suggests that relatively small changes in water temperature under expected future climate warming may alter taxonomic richness and ecological structure of these communities. Our findings improve the understanding of this unstudied but crucial component of bromeliad ecosystems and reveal important environmental filters that likely contribute to overall bromeliad community structure and function.     

PHYLOGENETIC ANALYSES REVEAL UNEXPECTED PATTERNS IN THE EVOLUTION OF REPRODUCTIVE MODES IN FROGS

Understanding phenotypic diversity requires not only identification of selective factors that favor origins of derived states, but also factors that favor retention of primitive states. Anurans (frogs and toads) exhibit a remarkable diversity of reproductive modes that is unique among terrestrial vertebrates. Here, we analyze the evolution of these modes, using comparative methods on a phylogeny and matched life‐history database of 720 species, including most families and modes. As expected, modes with terrestrial eggs and aquatic larvae often precede direct development (terrestrial egg, no tadpole stage), but surprisingly, direct development evolves directly from aquatic breeding nearly as often. Modes with primitive exotrophic larvae (feeding outside the egg) frequently give rise to direct developers, whereas those with nonfeeding larvae (endotrophic) do not. Similarly, modes with eggs and larvae placed in locations protected from aquatic predators evolve frequently but rarely give rise to direct developers. Thus, frogs frequently bypass many seemingly intermediate stages in the evolution of direct development. We also find significant associations between terrestrial reproduction and reduced clutch size, larger egg size, reduced adult size, parental care, and occurrence in wetter and warmer regions. These associations may help explain the widespread retention of aquatic eggs and larvae, and the overall diversity of anuran reproductive modes.     

Mosquito community structure in phytotelmata from a South American temperate wetland

Phytotelmata, or plant-held waters, are considered to be good model systems for the study of community ecology. The fauna of these natural container habitats, particularly the mosquitoes, have been extensively investigated in tropical regions, but there is little known about them in temperate South America. We assessed the structure of immature mosquito communities in leaf axils, tree holes, and bamboo stumps from a temperate wetland of Argentina. A total of 4,330 immature mosquitoes were collected among the 2,606 phytotelmata inspected. Leaf axils of eight plant species and tree holes were larval habitats for nine mosquito species belonging to the genus Culex, Wyeomyia, Isostomyia, and Toxorhynchites. The mosquito communities showed richness ranging from one to four species. Marked differences were detected in the plant specificity for the species collected. Some of them were exclusively found in one plant species (Isostomyia paranensis in Scirpus giganteus), whereas others were collected in up to five plant species but belonging to the same phytotelm class, the leaf axils. Those from tree holes are well-known dwellers of artificial containers and ground water habitats, such as Culex pipiens. Our results support the idea of low mosquito richness in phytotelmata from temperate regions in comparison with tropical areas, but the observed specificity patterns echo the findings of tropical forests.     

Foster rather than biological parental telomere length predicts offspring survival and telomere length in king penguins

Because telomere length and dynamics relate to individual growth, reproductive investment and survival, telomeres have emerged as possible markers of individual quality. Here, we tested the hypothesis that, in species with parental care, parental telomere length can be a marker of parental quality that predicts offspring phenotype and survival. In king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus), we experimentally swapped the single egg of 66 breeding pairs just after egg laying to disentangle the contribution of prelaying parental quality (e.g., genetics, investment in the egg) and/or postlaying parental quality (e.g., incubation, postnatal feeding rate) on offspring growth, telomere length and survival. Parental quality was estimated through the joint effects of biological and foster parent telomere length on offspring traits, both soon after hatching (day 10) and at the end of the prewinter growth period (day 105). We expected that offspring traits would be mostly related to the telomere lengths (i.e., quality) of biological parents at day 10 and to the telomere lengths of foster parents at day 105. Results show that chick survival up to 10 days was negatively related to biological fathers’ telomere length, whereas survival up to 105 days was positively related to foster fathers’ telomere lengths. Chick growth was not related to either biological or foster parents’ telomere length. Chick telomere length was positively related to foster mothers’ telomere length at both 10 and 105 days. Overall, our study shows that, in a species with biparental care, parents’ telomere length is foremost a proxy of postlaying parental care quality, supporting the “telomere – parental quality hypothesis.”