Abstract
AbstractThe structure of many aquatic food webs is influenced by tadpole survivorship and duration of seasonal occupancy, which depend on tadpole diet. Pollen has been occasionally reported to occur in tadpole diets, and the available studies show that tadpoles have a strong preference for this supposedly nutritive resource. Thus, we aimed to test whether a diet composed of pollen from varied plant species would boost tadpole growth, development, and agility/mobility, compared to a regular artificial balanced and nutritive diet. Tadpoles in initial developmental stages 25 and 30 grew more when fed with pollen, compared to artificial food and a mixture of both diets. Those initially in stage 30 advanced more developmental stages during one month when fed exclusively with pollen. Tadpoles fed with pollen moved longer distances in response to an aversive stimulus simulating a predatory attack than tadpoles fed with artificial food or a mixed diet. Our results corroborate the hypotheses of pollen being a very important food source to aquatic consumers such as tadpoles, being likely to influence the structure of aquatic food webs through tadpole nutrition and modulation of growth/development speed, as well as tadpole ability to escape predators.
Funder
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
Technische Universität Braunschweig
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Reference52 articles.
1. Altig, R. & R. W. McDiarmid, 1999. Diversity: familial and generic characterizations. In McDiarmid, R. W. & R. Altig (eds), Tadpoles – The Biology of Anuran Larvae University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL: 295–337.
2. Altig, R., R. Matt & C. L. Taylor, 2007. What do tadpoles really eat? Assessing the trophic status of an understudied and imperiled group of consumers in freshwater habitats. Freshwater Biology 52: 386–395.
3. Álvarez, D. & A. G. Nicieza, 2009. Differential success of prey escaping predators: tadpole vulnerability or predator selection? Copeia 2009: 453–457.
4. Bartoń, K., 2022. MuMIn: Multi-Model Inference. R package version 1.46.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=MuMIn
5. Bateman, P. W. & P. A. Fleming, 2015. Body size and group size of Cuban tree frog (Osteopilus septentrionalis) tadpoles influence their escape behaviour. Acta Ethologica 18: 161–166.