Comparative Population Ecology in Moor Frogs with Particular Reference to Acidity

This thesis is an attempt to describe how different environmental factors influence life history traits in different populations, sexes and developmental stages in the moor frog, Rana arvalis. The studied populations are located along 1100 km latitudinal gradient, with pH varying between 4.0 and 8.5. I have used data from both natural populations and common garden experiments. Reproducing moor frogs were larger and older at high latitudes, indicating a selective advantage of large size at high latitudes and/or earlier reproduction at low latitudes. When controlling for age I found that frogs were older and smaller at low pH, which may be a result of a reduced growth rate due to acid stress. The both sexes respond differently to different environments, with the lowest sexual dimorphism in body size found in the acid environments. This is possibly caused by a trade-off between growth and reproduction. Being large is considered to be advantageous, in females due to increased fecundity, and in males due to higher ability to compete for mates, while the cost of high growth is a reduced possibility to survive until the next mating season. Moor frog embryos originating from an acid population survived better under acid stress than embryos from a neutral population. Using quantitative genetic techniques I found strong maternal effects and small additive genetic variation for the traits in acid and non acid populations. The variation in acid stress tolerance owed largely to non-genetic effects. Females from acid localities lay larger eggs, which probably improves the performance of tadpoles under acid conditions. The trade-off between egg size and fecundity was stronger in acid populations indicating that females in acid populations reduced fecundity to increase offspring size. Finally, frogs from acidified environments were more asymmetric in skeletal traits further indicating the developmental stress created by acidification