Meeting Abstract

75.3  Friday, Jan. 7  The role of parental care in mediating a plastic life-history switch point: an example from a Neotropical glassfrog DELIA, Jesse; East Carolina University jdelia82@gmail.com

In species that modify the environment of their offspring, parental control of embryonic conditions can alleviate environmental heterogeneity and alter direct offspring-environmental interactions that would otherwise favor specific forms of developmental variation (i.e., hatching plasticity). However, when there are changes in the reliability of parentally transferred resources dependency on parental effects themselves can impose selective pressures. Here I report on a leaf-breeding glassfrog, ““Hyalinobatrachium fleischmanni”” , in which variation of parental care frequency influences hatching plasticity. I investigated the environmental correlates of parental care intensity, finding significantly strong associations with temporal and geographic environmental moisture levels; care behavior in this species maintains embryonic conditions in response to adverse environmental heterogeneity that increases egg desiccation. However, observations reveal that care intensity is subject to variation as a result of conflict (e.g., opportunities for multiple matings), which have significantly negative effects on survivorship and the age at hatching. Late-removal experiments found that embryos in the ‘safer’ environment (with parental care) delayed hatching significantly (up to 50%) longer than eggs directly exposed to the environment without care. These results indicate that parental care in ““H. fleischmanni”” interacts with developmental plasticity in the context of the safe harbor hypothesis; embryos respond to a ‘safer’ environment through delaying hatching and likely accrue a developmental advantage in the subsequent life-stage. Yet reduced care frequency affects the stability of the egg-environment, which results in environmentally induced hatching plasticity.