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Trophic ecology of tadpoles in floodplain wetlands: combining gut contents, selectivity, and stable isotopes to study feeding segregation of syntopic species

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Abstract

Little consensus exists on the role of food partitioning in the organization of tadpole assemblages. We studied trophic ecology of syntopic tadpoles through the analysis of gut contents, selectivity, and stable isotopes to assess the occurrence of food partitioning in tadpole assemblages. Tadpoles (n = 194) were collected in three wetlands and corresponded to four species: Elachistocleis bicolor (Eb), Scinax nasicus (Sn), Physalaemus albonotatus (Pa), and Dendropsophus sp. (D); and belonged to four ecomorphological groups (EMGs): suspension feeders (Eb), nektonic (Sn), benthic (Pa) and macrophagous (D). Sn, and Pa showed low selective diet and a wider trophic spectrum than Eb and D, which mainly consumed one or two food categories. Diet overlap was higher between Sn and Pa. Still, Sn and Pa presented some differences in the food resources consumed. Stable isotopes analysis showed that Eb, Sn, and Pa had a lower trophic position than D, explained by the high contribution of animal food oligochaete in D diet, in contrast to the importance of algae in the diet of Eb, Sn, and Pa. Diet specialization of some species, combined with the low dietary and isotopic overlap among the ecomorphological groups, suggests that trophic partitioning facilitates coexistence of syntopic tadpoles.

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Acknowledgements

This study was supported by Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET, Argentina) with a PhD fellowship to CE Antoniazzi. This study was financed by PIP-CONICET 2013-2017, PICT 2016-0916, PIP 112-201301-00790-CO and CAI+D-UNL PJoven-50020150100009LI. Collection of animals was authorized (Administrative Resolution 152-2016) by the Environmental Agency of Santa Fe Province, Argentine (Ministerio de Medio Ambiente de la Provincia de Santa Fe, Argentina) and use of specimens are in accordance with animal care guidelines of Regional and National Fauna Administrators. We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer and Associate Editor Lee Kats for the suggestions that contributed to improve the manuscript.

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  1. Instituto Nacional de Limnología (CONICET-UNL), Ciudad Universitaria, 3000, Santa Fe, Argentina

    Carolina Elisabet Antoniazzi, Javier Alejandro López, Rodrigo Ezequiel Lorenzón, Miguel Saigo, Melina Devercelli & Mercedes Rosa Marchese

  2. Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Católica de Santa Fe, Santa Fe, Argentina

    Carolina Elisabet Antoniazzi

  3. Departamento de Ciencias Naturales, Facultad de Humanidades y Ciencias, Universidad Nacional del Litoral, Santa Fe, Argentina

    Javier Alejandro López

  4. Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Raúl Eduardo Maneyro Landó

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Antoniazzi, C.E., López, J.A., Lorenzón, R.E. et al. Trophic ecology of tadpoles in floodplain wetlands: combining gut contents, selectivity, and stable isotopes to study feeding segregation of syntopic species. Hydrobiologia 847, 3013–3024 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-020-04303-0

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