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Irreversibility of a bad start: early exposure to osmotic stress limits growth and adaptive developmental plasticity

  • Physiological ecology - Original Paper
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Abstract

Harsh environments experienced early in development have immediate effects and potentially long-lasting consequences throughout ontogeny. We examined how salinity fluctuations affected survival, growth and development of Fejervarya limnocharis tadpoles. Specifically, we tested whether initial salinity effects on growth and rates of development were reversible and whether they affected the tadpoles’ ability to adaptively accelerate development in response to deteriorating conditions later in development. Tadpoles were initially assigned to either low or high salinity, and then some were switched between salinity levels upon reaching either Gosner stage 30 (early switch) or 38 (late switch). All tadpoles initially experiencing low salinity survived whereas those initially experiencing high salinity had poor survival, even if switched to low salinity. Growth and developmental rates of tadpoles initially assigned to high salinity did not increase after osmotic stress release. Initial low salinity conditions allowed tadpoles to attain a fast pace of development even if exposed to high salinity afterwards. Tadpoles experiencing high salinity only late in development metamorphosed faster and at a smaller size, indicating an adaptive acceleration of development to avoid osmotic stress. Nonetheless, early exposure to high salinity precluded adaptive acceleration of development, always causing delayed metamorphosis relative to those in initially low salinity. Our results thus show that stressful environments experienced early in development can critically impact life history traits, having long-lasting or irreversible effects, and restricting their ability to produce adaptive plastic responses.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a National Science Council Grant (NSC 95-2311-B-029-006-MY3) to YCK. We thank the Station of the East Coast National Scenic Area Administration of Green Island for logistic support, and C.S. Wu, T.L. Lin and R.F. Chao for administrative and field assistance; and James R. Vonesh for comments on an early draft of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Science, Tunghai University, Taichung, 40704, Taiwan

    Chi-Shiun Wu & Yeong-Choy Kam

  2. Estación Biológica de Doñana, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Avda.Américo Vespucio s/n, Sevilla, Spain

    Ivan Gomez-Mestre

  3. Research Group of Biodiversity (UO, CSIC, PA), c/Catedrático Rodrigo Uría s/n, 33071, Oviedo, Spain

    Ivan Gomez-Mestre

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  1. Chi-Shiun Wu
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  2. Ivan Gomez-Mestre
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  3. Yeong-Choy Kam
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Correspondence to Yeong-Choy Kam.

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Communicated by Raoul Van Damme.

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Wu, CS., Gomez-Mestre, I. & Kam, YC. Irreversibility of a bad start: early exposure to osmotic stress limits growth and adaptive developmental plasticity. Oecologia 169, 15–22 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-011-2170-2

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