JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. British Ecological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Functional Ecology.Abstract. Adult American toads, Bufo americanus americanus Holbrook, may be exposed to conditions that result in considerable variation in both body temperature and hydration state during their daily activity periods. We measured the interactive effects of body temperature and hydration state on locomotor performance of toads. Performance, measured as distance moved in 10 min of forced locomotion, decreased at all body temperatures as animals were dehydrated. The magnitude of this decrease was affected by temperature. Similarly, the effects of temperature on performance were influenced by the hydration state of the toad. Fully hydrated and slightly dehydrated animals travelled farthest at high test temperatures, whereas more dehydrated animals moved farthest at intermediate temperatures.Body temperature and hydration state showed statistically significant interaction and individual toads varied in their tolerance of those parameters. Thus, the relative performance capacities of individual toads under natural conditions cannot be predicted from laboratory measurements at a single combination of body temperature and hydration.

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Temperature and humidity are dominant environmental variables affecting performance of nocturnal, terrestrial amphibians. Toads are frequently active at body temperatures (T(b)) and hydration states (HS) that yield suboptimal performance. We investigated the combined effects of T(b) and HS on feeding, locomotion, and metabolism of Bufo americanus. More toads responded to the presence of prey when fully hydrated than when dehydrated, and times to orient to prey, maneuver around a barrier, and reach prey were less in hydrated than in dehydrated animals. Time to capture prey decreased with increasing T(b) in fully hydrated, but not dehydrated, toads, and hydrated animals caught prey more rapidly than did dehydrated animals. Distance traveled in 5 min and aerobic scope were affected by T(b). Generally, individuals that performed well in the feeding experiments at a particular T(b) and HS also performed well at a different T(b) and HS. The same was true for distance traveled and aerobic scope. However, within combinations of T(b) and HS, correlations between performance variables were minimal. Specialization of a particular variable resulting in high performance at a certain T(b) and HS does not appear to exact a cost in terms of performance at a different T(b) and HS.

Baseline concentrations of adrenal glucocorticoids often vary substantially in wild vertebrates in the field. In at least one ectotherm, females of the New Zealand common gecko, Hoplodactylus maculatus, this variation in baseline (not stress-induced) corticosterone appears to be correlated with variation in body temperature (T(b)). We tested the hypothesis that elevated corticosterone affects thermoregulatory behavior so as to raise T(b) and that, independently of an increase in T(b), corticosterone increases metabolic rate. Compared with geckos receiving placebo implants, those that received implants containing corticosterone displayed heat-seeking behaviors, had a higher mean T(b) in their home cages, and, at one time of day, selected a higher mean T(b) in a thermal gradient. At a constant T(b), corticosterone-treated geckos consumed oxygen at a rate approximately 50% higher than placebo geckos. This work has far-reaching implications for a variety of physiological and ecological processes in ectotherms and suggests that corticosterone should be considered as a variable influencing T(b) and metabolism in future studies.