Swimming with Predators and Pesticides: How Environmental Stressors Affect the Thermal Physiology of Tadpoles

To forecast biological responses to changing environments, we need to understand how a species’s physiology varies through space and time and assess how changes in physiological function due to environmental changes may interact with phenotypic changes caused by other types of environmental variation. Amphibian larvae are well known for expressing environmentally induced phenotypes, but relatively little is known about how these responses might interact with changing temperatures and their thermal physiology. To address this question, we studied the thermal physiology of grey treefrog tadpoles (Hyla versicolor) by determining whether exposures to predator cues and an herbicide (Roundup) can alter their critical maximum temperature (CTmax) and their swimming speed across a range of temperatures, which provides estimates of optimal temperature (Topt) for swimming speed and the shape of the thermal performance curve (TPC). We discovered that predator cues induced a 0.4uC higher CTmax value, whereas the herbicide had no effect. Tadpoles exposed to predator cues or the herbicide swam faster than control tadpoles and the increase in burst speed was higher near Topt. In regard to the shape of the TPC, exposure to predator cues increased Topt by 1.5uC, while exposure to the herbicide marginally lowered Topt by 0.4uC. Combining predator cues and the herbicide produced an intermediate Topt that was 0.5uC higher than the control. To our knowledge this is the first study to demonstrate a predator altering the thermal physiology of amphibian larvae (prey) by increasing CTmax, increasing the optimum temperature, and producing changes in the thermal performance curves. Furthermore, these plastic responses of CTmax and TPC to different inducing environments should be considered when forecasting biological responses to global warming.Peer reviewe

Getting a Head Start: Diet, Sub-Adult Growth, and Associative Learning in a Seed-Eating Passerine

Developmental stress, and individual variation in response to it, can have important fitness consequences. Here we investigated the consequences of variable dietary protein on the duration of growth and associative learning abilities of zebra finches, Taeniopygia guttata, which are obligate graminivores. The high-protein conditions that zebra finches would experience in nature when half-ripe seed is available were mimicked by the use of egg protein to supplement mature seed, which is low in protein content. Growth rates and relative body proportions of males reared either on a low-protein diet (mature seed only) or a high-protein diet (seed plus egg) were determined from body size traits (mass, head width, and tarsus) measured at three developmental stages. Birds reared on the high-protein diet were larger in all size traits at all ages, but growth rates of size traits showed no treatment effects. Relative head size of birds reared on the two diets differed from age day 95 onward, with high-diet birds having larger heads in proportion to both tarsus length and body mass. High-diet birds mastered an associative learning task in fewer bouts than those reared on the low-protein diet. In both diet treatments, amount of sub-adult head growth varied directly, and sub-adult mass change varied inversely, with performance on the learning task. Results indicate that small differences in head growth during the sub-adult period can be associated with substantial differences in adult cognitive performance. Contrary to a previous report, we found no evidence for growth compensation among birds on the low-protein diet. These results have implications for the study of vertebrate cognition, developmental stress, and growth compensation

Wnt signalling underlies the evolution of new phenotypes and craniofacial variability in Lake Malawi cichlids

Progress towards understanding adaptive radiations at the mechanistic level is still limited with regard to the proximate molecular factors that both promote and constrain evolution. Here we focus on the craniofacial skeleton and show that expanded Wnt/β-catenin signalling early in ontogeny is associated with the evolution of phenotypic novelty and ecological opportunity in Lake Malawi cichlids. We demonstrate that the mode of action of this molecular change is to effectively lock into place an early larval phenotype, likely through accelerated rates of bone deposition. However, we demonstrate further that this change toward phenotypic novelty may in turn constrain evolutionary potential through the corresponding reduction in craniofacial plasticity at later stages of ontogeny. In all, our data implicate the Wnt pathway as an important mediator of craniofacial form and offer new insights into how developmental systems can evolve to both promote and constrain evolutionary change

Sustainable Decision-Making: Moving Beyond People, Planets, and Profits

This chapter highlights the immense difficulty of achieving sustainability unlessthe language of business changes from an obsessive focus on profit, and leadersuse new frameworks to view business problems. Traditional framing in businessincludes the worlds of accounting, warfare, sports, and games, which are at oddswith humanistic and holistic approach essential to developing leaders with thecourage and engagement needed to address the challenge of the sustainability ofour planet. The chapter introduces the need for a new language for sustainablebusiness, examines the unhappiness of the millennial generation with the currentlanguage, and explores how business-as-usual changes when a more holisticlanguage is used. The chapter then examines how when the decision-making frame changes from one of war and losses to one of community and sociallearning, decision makers are more likely to reframe both their goals and thefocus of their analysis to go beyond monetary outcomes to include socially andenvironmentally sustainable outcomes. It also analyzes the role of holistic language,motivation and appropriateness in moving organizational cultures from asingle-minded profit focus to one of triple bottom line sustainability. The chapterends with a road map and several examples of how organizations can change theway they frame sustainability problems, develop new goals that are holistic innature and aligned with global sustainability goals, and implement metrics tokeep track of real progress towards sustainability

Ecological Developmental Biology: Interpreting Developmental Signs

Developmental biology is a theory of interpretation. Developmental signals are interpreted differently depending on the previous history of the responding cell. Thus, there is a context for the reception of a signal. While this conclusion is obvious during metamorphosis, when a single hormone instructs some cells to proliferate, some cells to differentiate, and other cells to die, it is commonplace during normal development. Paracrine factors such as BMP4 can induce apoptosis, proliferation, or differentiation depending upon the history of the responding cells. In addition, organisms have evolved to alter their development in response to differences in temperature, diet, the presence of predators, or the presence of competitors. This allows them to develop the phenotype, within the limits imposed by the genotype, best suited for the immediate habitat of the organism. Most developing organisms have also evolved to expect developmental signals from symbionts, and these organisms develop abnormally if the symbiont signals are not present. Thus Hoffmeyer’s “vertical semiotic system” of genetic communication and “horizontal semiotic system” of ecological communication are integrated during development