Thermal ecology of Stejneger’s robber frog Craugastor stejnegerianus (Anura: Craugastoridae) in the tropical dry forest of Parque Nacional Guanacaste, Costa Rica
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18636/bioneotropical.v6i1.245Keywords:
Leaf-litter frog, Maritza Biological Station, Microhabitat, ThermoregulationAbstract
Introduction: In a climate changing world it is indispensable to know the behavioral and physiological responses of amphibians to environmental temperature variation. Even so, thermal ecology is unknown for many species, including Craugastor stejnegerianus. Therefore, it is important to describe the patterns and mechanisms that in uence body temperature and if these obey to the environmental temperature or to thermoregulation actions. Objective: The aim of this paper is to describe the relationship between environmental and substrate temperatures, as well as the behavior and substrate use with the body temperature of C. stejnegerianus. Methodology: The body temperature of individuals of C. stejnegerianus was monitored 13.4 h, along with measures of environmental temperature, substrate use and behavior observations. Results: the results obtained were that the body temperature is related to the substrate temperature but it does not depend on the variations of environmental temperature nor behavior or substrate use. Conclusion: Based in our ndings we propose that the body temperature variation of this frog is circumstantial and there is not behavior of thermoregulation.
Downloads
References
ACG (Área de Conservación Guanacaste). Estación Biológica Maritza. (Online). 2010. (Accessed on August 12, 2013). San José: Centro de Investigación del Bosque Tropical Seco y Estaciones Biológicas. URL http://www.acguanacaste.ac.cr/1997/ecodesarrollo/ecoturismo/est_biol. html>
Brattstrom BH. 1979. Amphibian temperature regulation studies
in the eld and in the laboratory. Am Zool. 19: 345-56.
Chambers JM, Cleveland WS, Kleiner B, Tukey PA. 1983. Comparing data distributions. In graphical methods for
data analysis. Belmont: Wadsworth International Group. Köhler A, Sadowska J, Olszewska J, Trzeciak P, Berger-Tal O, Tracy CR. 2011.
Staying warm or moist? Operative temperature and thermal preferences of common frogs (Rana temporaria), and effects pn locomotion. HerpetolJ. 21: 17-26.
Krzywinski M, Altman N. 2014. Points of signi cance: Visualiz-
ing samples with box plots. Nat Meth. 11: 119-20.
Navas CA. 1996. Implications of microhabitat selection and pat- terns of activity on the thermal ecology of high elevation
neotropical anurans. Oecologia. 108: 617-26.
Navas CA, Carvajalino-Fernández JM, Saboyá-Acosta LP, Rueda-Solano LA, Carvajalino-Fernández MA. 2013. The body temperature of active amphibians along a tropical elevation gradient: patterns of mean and variance and inference from environmental data. Funct Ecol. Online version: 1-10.
Rowley JJL, Alford RA. 2009. Models in eld studies of tempera-
ture and moisture. In: Dodd CK (ed.). Amphibian ecology
and conservation. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ryan MJ, Scott NJ, Cook JA, Willink B, Chaves G, Bolaños F, et al. 2015.
Too wet for frogs: changes in a tropical leaf litter community coincide with La Niña. Ecosphere. 6 (1): 1-10.
Ryan MJ, Fuller MM, Scott NJ, Cook JA, Poe1 S, Willink B, et al. 2014. Individualistic population responses of ve frog species in two changing tropical environments over time. Plos One. 9 (5): 1-8.
Solís F, Ibáñez R, Chaves G, Savage J, Jaramillo C, Fuenmayor Q,
et al. 2008. Craugastor stejnegerianus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Online). Version 2014.3. (Access on 01 February 2015) URL: http:// www.iucnredlist.org
Wickham, H. 2009. Ggplot2: elegant graphics for fata analysis. New York: Springer.
