1. It is becoming clear that individual growth rates are optimized to suit local conditions rather than maximized to be as fast as possible. To understand this adaptive variation in growth rates, we need to understand the costs of rapid growth. 2. Recent work in teleost fish suggests that a trade-off between growth rate and critical swimming speed may be common. The current study demonstrates t...

Anurans (frogs and toads) are unique among land vertebrates in possessing a free-living larval stage that, parallel to adult frogs, diversified into an impressive range of ecomorphs. The tempo and mode at which tadpole morphology evolved through anuran history as well as its relationship to lineage diversification remain elusive. We used a molecular phylogenetic framework to examine patterns of...

0003-3472 2012 The Association for the Study of A http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2012.10.031 The scientific study of frogs and toads as important systems in behavioural ecology traces its roots to an influential review published in this journal 36 years ago (Wells 1977a, ‘The social behaviour of anuran amphibians’, Animal Behaviour, 25, 666e693). In just 28 pages, Wells summarized the stat...

The anuran larval guild is characterised by the co-occurrence of distinct species in the same pond at high densities during development with a high niche overlap. For these reasons anuran larvae have been studied widely as a model system for competition. Body size and activity level are considered the most important factors that influence the outcome of competition between tadpoles. As species ...

Amphibians exhibit various, characteristic adaptations related to their "incomplete" shift from the aquatic to the terrestrial habitat. In particular, the integument was subject to a number of specialized modifications during the evolution of these animals. In this review, we place special emphasis on endogenous host-defence skin peptides from the cuteanous granular glands anuran amphibians (fr...

We designed a dynamic optimization model to examine anuran-breeding phenologies. We evaluated the fitness consequences for males adopting one of four alternative strategies: calling, satelliting, foraging, or hiding. Various factors potentially influence male behavior, including energy reserves, predation risk, cost of calling, probability of finding food, distribution of male energy states in ...

Urodele amphibians are highly regenerative animals. After partial removal of the brain in urodeles, ependymal cells around the wound surface proliferate, differentiate into neurons and glias and finally regenerate the lost tissue. In contrast to urodeles, this type of brain regeneration is restricted only to the larval stages in anuran amphibians (frogs). In adult frogs, whereas ependymal cells...