Tadpoles Develop Elevated Heat Tolerance in Urban Heat Islands Regardless of Sex

Abstract

The ability of wildlife to endure the effects of high temperatures is increasingly important for biodiversity conservation under climate change and spreading urbanization. Organisms living in urban heat islands can have elevated heat tolerance via phenotypic or transgenerational plasticity or microevolution. However, the prevalence and mechanisms of such thermal adaptations are barely known in aquatic organisms. Furthermore, males and females can differ in heat tolerance, which may lead to sex-biased mortality, yet it is unknown how sex differences in thermal biology influence urban phenotypic divergence. To address these knowledge gaps, we measured critical thermal maxima (CT_max) in male and female agile frog (Rana dalmatina) tadpoles captured from warm urban ponds and cool woodland ponds, and in a common-garden experiment where embryos collected from both habitat types were raised in the laboratory. We found higher CT_max in urban-dwelling tadpoles compared to their counterparts living in woodland ponds. This difference was reversed in the common-garden experiment: tadpoles originating from urban ponds had lower CT_max than tadpoles originating from woodland ponds. We found no effect of sex on CT_max or its difference between habitats. These results demonstrate that aquatic amphibian larvae can respond to the urban heat island effect with increased heat tolerance similarly to other, mostly terrestrial taxa studied so far, and that phenotypic plasticity may be the main driver of this response. Our findings also suggest that heat-induced mortality may be independent of sex in tadpoles, but research is needed in many more taxa to explore potentially sex-dependent urban thermal responses.