Shaffery, Heather M and Relyea, Rick A
(2013)
THE ART OF WAR: PATTERNS AND MECHANISMS UNDERLYING PREDATOR-INDUCED PLASTICITY OF AMPHIBIANS.
Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Organisms often employ phenotypic plasticity as a strategy to cope with variable environments. This is particularly true of predation threats, wherein prey induce defenses to reduce detection or capture by predators. In order to produce appropriate defenses, prey must be able to discern useful information from environmental cues. Despite the pervasive production of inducible defenses, we understand very little of how much useful information is conveyed to organisms in cues, or how the subsequent plastic responses vary within groups of organisms.
To address the need for comparative studies of phenotypic plasticity, we sought to examine morphological and behavioral defenses of five species of Ambystoma salamander larvae in response to larval dragonfly (Anax junius) chemical cues in a common garden environment. Dragonfly cues induced relatively few morphological changes across species. Likewise, salamanders did not vary in their refuge use during the experiment, though several species reduced their activity in the presence of predators early in development. Our results suggest that behavioral and morphological defenses in Ambystoma are highly variable among species and the genus appears to be less plastic than tadpoles and other salamander species.
To understand what types of information prey are capable of responding to in their environment, we raised grey treefrog tadpoles (Hyla verisciolor) in the presence of cues isolated from different stages of an attack sequence by larval dragonflies (A. junius) or larval dragonflies
THE ART OF WAR: PATTERNS AND MECHANISMS UNDERLYING PREDATOR-INDUCED PLASTICITY OF AMPHIBIANS
Heather Michelle Shaffery, M.S.
University of Pittsburgh, 2013
iv
consuming different combinations of grey treefrog tadpoles and snails (Helisoma trivolvis) across different temporal sequences. When exposed to a predator consuming grey treefrogs, tadpoles reduced their activity, increased their hiding behavior, and induced deeper tails. As we exposed prey to more types of cues from an attack sequence, they also increased tail depth and hiding behavior but did not change their activity. Additionally, treefrog tadpoles generally increased their defense as the biomass of treefrogs consumed increased, regardless of whether heterospecifics were being consumed. Our results suggest that treefrogs can gain cue information from all portions of an attack sequence, and that both temporal patterns of feeding and diet content of predators influence the type and magnitude of induced prey defenses.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
1 October 2013 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
1 April 2013 |
| Approval Date: |
1 October 2013 |
| Submission Date: |
23 July 2013 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
90 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Biological Sciences |
| Degree: |
MS - Master of Science |
| Thesis Type: |
Master's Thesis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
animal behavior, predator-prey dynamics, amphibians, dragonflies, Hyla versicolor, Amybstoma spp., salamanders, cues, kairomones, antipredator behavior, antipredator morphology |
| Date Deposited: |
01 Oct 2013 12:28 |
| Last Modified: |
15 Nov 2016 14:14 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/19424 |
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