Background matching through fast and reversible melanin-based pigmentation plasticity in tadpoles comes with morphological and antioxidant changes
Entity
UAM. Departamento de BiologíaPublisher
Springer NatureDate
2023-07-26Citation
10.1038/s41598-023-39107-4
Scientific Reports 13 (2023): 12064
ISSN
2045-2322DOI
10.1038/s41598-023-39107-4Funded by
We would like to thank Mónica Gutiérrez Rivillo for assistance with laboratory work. We would also like to thank the funding bodies that supported this project, namely the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Grant/Award Numbers: IJC2018-035780-I and PID2020-119517GB-I00)Project
Gobierno de España. IJC2018-035780-I; Gobierno de España. PID2020-119517GB-I00Editor's Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-39107-4Subjects
Biología y Biomedicina / BiologíaRights
© The Author(s) 2023Abstract
Facultative colour change is widespread in the animal kingdom, and has been documented in many distantly related amphibians. However, experimental data testing the extent of facultative colour change, and associated physiological and morphological implications are comparatively scarce. Background matching in the face of spatial and temporal environmental variation is thought to be an important proximate function of colour change in aquatic amphibian larvae. This is particularly relevant for species with long larval periods such as the western spadefoot toad, Pelobates cultripes, whose tadpoles spend up to six months developing in temporary waterbodies with temporally variable vegetation. By rearing tadpoles on different coloured backgrounds, we show that P. cultripes larvae can regulate pigmentation to track fine-grained differences in background brightness, but not hue or saturation. We found that colour change is rapid, reversible, and primarily achieved through changes in the quantity of eumelanin in the skin. We show that this increased eumelanin production and/or maintenance is also correlated with changes in morphology and oxidative stress, with more pigmented tadpoles growing larger tail fins and having an improved redox status
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Google Scholar:Liedtke, H. Christoph
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López Hervás, Karem
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Galván, Ismael
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Polo Cavia, Nuria
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Gómez Mestre, Iván
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