Phosphorus has been identified as an important determinant of nutritionrelated biological variation. The macronutrients protein (P) and carbohydrates (C), both alone and interactively, are known to affect animal performance. No study, however, has investigated the importance of phosphorus relative to dietary protein or carbohydrates, or the interactive effects of phosphorus with these macronutrients, on fitness-related traits in animals. We used a nutritional geometry framework to address this question in adult field crickets (Gryllus veletis). Our results showed that lifespan, weight gain, acoustic mate signalling and egg production were maximized on diets with different P : C ratios, that phosphorus did not positively affect any of these fitness traits, and that males and females had different optimal macronutrient intake ratios for reproductive performance. When given a choice, crickets selected diets that maximized both lifespan and reproductive performance by preferentially eating diets with low P : C ratios, and females selected diets with a higher P : C ratio than males. Conversely, phosphorus intake was not regulated. Overall, our findings highlight the importance of disentangling the influences of different nutrients, and of quantifying both their individual and interactive effects, on animal fitness traits, so as to gain a more integrative understanding of their nutritional ecology.
Recently, there has been increasing interest in behavioral syndrome research across a range of taxa. Behavioral syndromes are suites of correlated behaviors that are expressed either within a given behavioral context (e.g., mating) or between different contexts (e.g., foraging and mating). Syndrome research holds profound implications for animal behavior as it promotes a holistic view in which seemingly autonomous behaviors may not evolve independently, but as a "suite" or "package." We tested whether laboratory-reared male and female European house crickets, Acheta domesticus, exhibited behavioral syndromes by quantifying individual differences in activity, exploration, mate attraction, aggressiveness, and antipredator behavior. To our knowledge, our study is the first to consider such a breadth of behavioral traits in one organism using the syndrome framework. We found positive correlations across mating, exploratory, and antipredatory contexts, but not aggression and general activity. These behavioral differences were not correlated with body size or condition, although age explained some of the variation in motivation to mate. We suggest that these across-context correlations represent a boldness syndrome as individual risk-taking and exploration was central to across-context mating and antipredation correlations in both sexes. Keywords Personality. Boldness. Temperament. Behavioral syndromes. Risk-taking Over the past 5 years, behavioral ecologists and evolutionary biologists have witnessed a dramatic upsurge in behavioral syndrome research (Sih et al. 2004b; Bell 2007; Sih and Bell 2007). Succinctly defined, behavioral syndromes are suites of correlated behaviors expressed either within a given behavioral context (e.g., foraging) or between different contexts (e.g., foraging and antipredator behavior; Sih et al. 2004a, b). Behavioral syndromes hold profound implications for studies of animal behavior as they advocate a holistic view of behavior in which seemingly autonomous behaviors may not evolve independently, but as a "suite" or "package" (Price and Langen 1992; Sih et al. 2004b). As such, selection affecting one behavior in the suite may also affect how other behaviors are expressed across behavioral contexts (Sih et al. 2004b; Sih and Bell 2007). The ramification is that behaviors may not be free to evolve adaptively to independent optima across contexts due to underlying physiological, behavioral, or genetic constraints associated with the syndrome. Thus, the framework of behavioral syndromes has the potential to revolutionize the manner by which we study animal behavior, particularly if syndromes are common across taxa. The ecological and evolutionary importance of behavioral syndromes is increasingly being recognized both empirically (e.g., Bell 2005; Dingemanse et al. 2007; Wilson and McLaughlin 2007) and conceptually (Sih et al. 2004b) as noted in a recent review by Bell (2007). Personality traits (e.g., boldness, sociability, aggressiveness, activity) are difficult to study in isolation as they ...
Management of coniferous forests of eastern Canada may involve spraying with the insecticide femtrothion and the herbicides triclopyr and hexazinone Because ranid frogs breed in ponds that are unavoidably contaminated by spraying, we measured the toxicity of these chemicals to embryos and tadpoles of Rana pipiens (leopard frog), Rana clamitans (green frog), and Rana catesbeiana (bullfrog) under lab conditions Embryos were exposed during late neurula stage and tadpoles within 48 h after hatching to femtrothion (24 h, 0 5‐8 0 ppm), tnclopyr (48 h, 0 6‐4 8 ppm), and hexazmone (8 d, 100 ppm) We measured hatching success of embryos, and for tadpoles, mortality, ability to swim away when prodded, and total body length one week after exposure Hexazinone had no effects on embryos or tadpoles, even at the unreasonably high levels to which they were exposed Hatching success of embryos and subsequent avoidance behavior were unaffected in all species by exposures to triclopyr and femtrothion Newly hatched tadpoles of all species were very sensitive to 2 4 and 4 8 ppm tnclopyr and to 4 0 and 8 0 ppm femtrothion, either dying or remaining paralyzed following exposure Tadpoles initially affected by exposure to lower concentrations of femtrothion or tnclopyr usually recovered within 1 to 3 d Bullfrog and green frog tadpoles appear to be more sensitive than leopard frog tadpoles, and bullfrog tadpoles were consistently more sensitive than green frog tadpoles
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