PARENT SESSION
Oral Session # 57: Evolutionary Ecology II: Animal.
Presiding: S Juliano
Wednesday, August 6. 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM, SITCC Meeting Room 201.

Examining the evolutionary ecology of wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) using microsatellite analysis.

Halverson, Mark Anders^*,1, ¹ Yale University, New Haven, CT

ABSTRACT- Amphibians have commonly been used as a model system in ecology and evolution. However, because of the difficulty of assessing relatedness between individuals and tracking individuals over time, most of these studies have been conducted at the population level or in artificial environments. I used multilocus microsatellite analysis to uniquely identify wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) and their offspring in the wild and thereby address several questions about the ecology and evolution of this species at the individual level. I found that the weight of the males and females was significantly related to breeding success, but not always to the number of metamorphs produced. There was no evidence for multiple paternity in any egg mass. There was a significant difference in the weight of the metamorphs and the larval period of different sibships but this was not significantly related to the weight of the parents. We also found evidence that the larvae of different sibships were nonrandomly distributed in the ponds. Ongoing study of this system using these techniques will make it possible to address similar questions at longer time scales.

Key words: Rana sylvatica, Paternity, Amphibian, Microsatellite