PLOS ONE · 8 authors, 2 centres
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Laboratory experiments showed that Dendropsophus ebraccatus tadpoles increased defensive phenotypes in response to rising concentrations of predator cues, and when exposed to mixed cues from fish and dragonfly nymphs, developed an intermediate phenotype skewed toward the more lethal fish-induced response.
Two laboratory experiments tested phenotypic plasticity in Dendropsophus ebraccatus tadpoles exposed to predator cues from fish and dragonfly nymphs. In the first experiment, tadpoles reared across a gradient of cue concentrations showed that tail spot coloration differed even at the lowest cue concentration, while body morphology only differed at the highest concentration. In the second experiment, tadpoles exposed to mixed predator cues developed an intermediate phenotype that was more similar to the fish-induced phenotype than the dragonfly-induced phenotype. The first components of both morphology and tail spot coloration principal component analyses differed significantly by treatment, except the FF and DF treatments, which did not differ from one another. Fish are a more lethal predator of these tadpoles than dragonfly nymphs, and tadpoles appeared to respond preferentially to the more dangerous predator.
