Smooth, striated, or rough: how substrate textures affect the feeding performance of tadpoles with different oral morphologies

Resumo

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

Descrição

Palavras-chave

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.