For citation:
Kondratova T. E., Ivolga R. A., Podolsky I. A., Malnov D. A., Chernenko T. A., Guridova D. V., Motoshina M. A., Zudilina A. A., Groda O. S., Demyanchik V. V., Kidov A. A. Species-specific effects of temperature on larval development of Palaearctic toads of the family Bufonidae (Amphibia, Anura). Current Studies in Herpetology, 2026, vol. 26, iss. 1, pp. 9-14. DOI: 10.18500/1814-6090-2026-26-1-2-9-14, EDN: EZECIQ
Species-specific effects of temperature on larval development of Palaearctic toads of the family Bufonidae (Amphibia, Anura)
Among many abiotic environmental factors affecting amphibian larval development, temperature regime is one of the most important. Larvae of the genera Bufo, Bufotes and Epidalea were used in our experiments. Five temperature regimes (20, 23, 26, 29, and 32°C) were used in rearing juveniles. With increasing water temperature, the duration of larval development decreased statistically significantly in all species studied (r = -0.89 – -0.36; p < 0.05). Increasing water temperature significantly reduced the survival of juveniles of B. bufo, B. sachalinensis and E. calamita (r = -0.84 – -0.74; p < 0.05), but had no effect on larvae of the genus Bufotes. In addition, we observed a negative correlation between juveniles body lengths at landfall and water temperature (r = -0.72 – -0.66; p < 0.05) in all the species except E. calamita and B. viridis. For B. sachalinensis, B. bufo and B. pewzowi, we observed a significant negative relationship between the juveniles body weight at landfall and water temperature. The acceleration of developmental rates and the reduction of body size with increasing water temperature are attributed to adaptation of amphibian larvae to the drying of ephemeral water bodies and to an increase in their metabolic intensity.
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