Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Commons^™

Developing Tadpoles Exhibit Metabolic And Organ Size Plasticity In Competitive Rearing Environments, Emma Kimberly

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Projects

Abstract

Plasticity is the ability of an organism to respond to environmental variation by expressing different phenotypes. In Red-eyed treefrog tadpoles, Agalychnis callidryas, competitive environments induce long guts and short tails. Despite having a larger gut, tadpoles reared with competition do not increase intake when food becomes available. Pilot data suggest that this is because they have lower metabolic rates. The ability to maintain a larger gut with a depressed metabolic rate is confusing because guts are energetically expensive, and suggests that another energetic trade-off is taking place. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of …