Influence of substrate orientation on tadpoles' feeding efficiency
Persistent URL
Author(s)
Annibale, Fabiane Santana
de Sousa, Verônica T. T.
de Sousa, Carlos Eduardo
Venesky, Matthew D.
Rossa-Feres, Denise de Cerqueira
Nomura, Fausto
Wassersug, Richard J.
Date Issued
January 14, 2019
Abstract
In nature, tadpoles encounter food on substrates oriented at different angles (e.g. vertically along stems, horizontally on the bottom of the pond). We manipulated the orientation of food-covered surfaces to test how different orientations of surfaces affect tadpoles' feeding efficiency. We studied taxa that differed in the oral morphology of their larvae and position in the water column. We hypothesized that species would differ in their ability to graze upon surfaces at different orientations and that differences in the tadpoles' feeding ability would result in different growth rates. The orientation of food-covered surfaces did not affect the growth rate of bottom-dwelling tadpoles (whose growth rate varied only between species). Among midwater tadpoles, some species appear to have a generalist strategy and experienced a high relative growth rate on numerous substrate orientations, whereas others achieved high growth rates only on flat substrates (i.e. at 0° and 180°). We conclude that oral morphology constrains tadpoles' ability to feed at different substrate orientations, and this could lead to niche partitioning in structurally complex aquatic environments. Because physical parameters of the environment can affect tadpoles' growth rate, characterizing these features might help us better understand how competition structures tadpole assemblages.
Journal
Biology Open
Department
Biology
Citation
Annibale, F. S., de Sousa, Verônica Thiemi Tsutae, de Sousa, C. E., Venesky, M. D., Rossa-Feres, D. d. C., Nomura, F., & Wassersug, R. J. (2019). Influence of substrate orientation on tadpoles' feeding efficiency. Biology Open, 8(1), bio037598. doi:10.1242/bio.037598
Publisher
Company of Biologists
Version of Article
Published article
DOI
10.1242/bio.037598
ISSN
2046-6390
Rights
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed.
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
2019-01-14_Venesky_Influence_Access_Instructions.pdf
Description
Access Instructions
Size
91.99 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (etag)
b04831a6dfdef6daeade3bb4586cc5f4
Name
2019-01-14_Venesky_Influence.pdf
Description
Main Article
Size
2.32 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (etag)
f7fea3b0fb77b95a5531eb3d53b7dddb