- Title
- Quantity versus quality: A balance between egg and clutch size among Australian amphibians in relation to other life-history variables
- Creator
- Gould, John; Beranek, Chad; Valdez, Jose; Mahony, Michael
- Relation
- Austral Ecology Vol. 47, Issue 3, p. 685-697
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/aec.13154
- Publisher
- John Wiley & Sons
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Due to resource limitations and physical constraints of the reproducing female, a trade-off must be made between the number of eggs she produces and their size per clutch. This generally results in an inverse relationship between egg and clutch size, which has been found repeatedly across animal groups. Few studies have investigated this relationship with respect to selection pressures, environmental variables and other life-history traits. We aimed to test current hypotheses regarding the trade-off between egg and clutch size among the three Australian Anuran families (Hylidae, Myobatrachidae and Microhylidae). Specifically, we used a comparative phylogenetic approach to look at the influence of environmental selection pressures (egg-laying location, environment persistence and bioregion) and life-history traits (female body size, egg development type, parental care level, breeding period and temporal breeding pattern) on this trade-off. As expected, a strong inverse relationship was found between egg and clutch size. Smaller clutches of larger eggs tended to be produced by species with smaller female sizes that (i) oviposit terrestrially and arboreally compared with aquatically, (ii) have prolonged compared with explosive breeding periods, (iii) directly develop compared with having a feeding tadpole stage and (iv) exhibit high compared with low levels of parental care. These findings show that the shift towards producing larger eggs in smaller clutches is associated with the transition away from the ancestral amphibian reproductive pattern. We highlight how the balance made when provisioning finite resources to egg within a clutch differs between species that have evolved diverse life histories, providing a framework for future examinations of the trade-off between egg and clutch sizes among anurans.
- Subject
- Anuran; Hylidae; life history; microhylidae; myobatrachidae; phylogenetic relationship
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1472803
- Identifier
- uon:48919
- Identifier
- ISSN:1442-9985
- Rights
- © 2022 The Authors. Austral Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Ecological Society of Australia. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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