Smooth, striated, or rough: how substrate textures affect the feeding performance of tadpoles with different oral morphologies
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2020
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For grazing animals that share spatial and alimentary resources, the relationship between diferences in oral morphology and
the physical properties of substrates can help explain how and where species forage. The substrates may require diferent
eforts from animals to access and remove food from their surfaces. Variation in oral morphology may produce diferences
in animals’ feeding efciency. We tested whether one substrate characteristic, the surface texture (i.e., smooth, striated and
rough), infuences the growth and food consumption rates of anuran larvae from nine species with diferent oral morphologies. Tadpoles with few keratinized oral structures and those with more gaps in the marginal papillae row were more efcient
grazing on smooth and rough surfaces, respectively. This may indicate possible feeding specializations. Conversely, tadpoles
with a high number of labial tooth rows, regardless of the number of gaps in these structures, and those with only a dorsal
gap in the marginal papillae row were equally efcient feeding upon all substrate textures. Tadpoles with the generalized
labial tooth row formula 2(2)/3(1), had higher growth rates than the other species, suggesting an adaptive signifcance for
this common oral morphology. We demonstrated that species difer in feeding efciency when grazing on substrates with
diferent textures. This can help elucidate the adaptive signifcance of variation in tadpole oral morphology. We also provide
insights on resource selection and niche partitioning among species, especially for those whose diets do not difer in quantity
or quality, as it is common in anuran larval assemblages
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Anuran larvae, Niche breadth, Ecomorphology, Foraging surfaces, Feeding behavior
Citação
ANNIBALE, Fabiane Santana et al. Smooth, striated, or rough: how substrate textures affect the feeding performance of tadpoles with different oral morphologies Zoomorphology. Zoomorphology, Berlin, v. 139, p. 97-110, 2020. DOI: 10.1007/s00435-019-00469-x. Disponível em: https://link-springer-com.ez49.periodicos.capes.gov.br/article/10.1007/s00435-019-00469-x. Acesso em: 7 jun. 2023.