Effects of amphibian genetic diversity on ecological communities.

Abstract

The amount of genetic diversity within a population can affect ecological processes at population, community, and ecosystem levels. However, the magnitude, consistency, and scope of these effects are largely unknown. To investigate these issues, we conducted two experiments manipulating the amount of genetic diversity and environmental factors in larval amphibians. The first experiment manipulated wood frog genetic diversity, the presence or absence of caged predators, and competition from leopard frogs to test whether these factors affected survival, growth, and morphology of wood frogs and leopard frogs. The second experiment manipulated wood frog genetic diversity, the presence or absence of uncaged predators, and resource abundance to test whether these factors affected wood frog traits (survival, morphology, growth, development, and behavior) and other components of the ecological community (zooplankton abundance, phytoplankton, periphyton, and bacterial community structure). Genetic diversity did not affect wood frog survival, growth, and development in either experiment. However, genetic diversity did affect the mean morphology of wood frog tadpoles in the first experiment and the abundance and distribution of zooplankton in the second experiment. It did not affect phytoplankton abundance, periphyton abundance, or bacterial community structure. While effect sizes (Cohen's d) of genetic diversity were approximately half those of environment treatments, the greatest effect sizes were for interaction effects between genetic diversity and environment. Our results indicate that genetic diversity can have a large effect on ecological processes, but the direction of those effects is highly dependent upon environmental conditions, and not easily predicted from simple measures of traits.