Experimental evidence for maternal provisioning of alkaloid defenses in a dendrobatid frog.

Experimental evidence for maternal provisioning of alkaloid defenses in a dendrobatid frog. Toxicon. 2019 Feb 18;: Authors: Saporito RA, Russell MW, Richards-Zawacki CL, Dugas MB Abstract Dendrobatid frogs sequester alkaloid defenses from dietary arthropods. Here, we provide experimental evidence that mother strawberry poison frogs (Oophaga pumilio) provision alkaloids to tadpoles. Captive-raised females were fed the synthetic alkaloid decahydroquinoline (DHQ), which we subsequently quantified in their skin, eggs, and developing tadpoles. DHQ quantity was positively associated with tadpole mass/development, suggesting high sequestration rates by tadpoles. These data confirm that tadpoles obtain nutrition and alkaloids by feeding exclusively on maternally provisioned eggs. PMID: 30790578 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Toxicon - Category: Toxicology Authors: Tags: Toxicon Source Type: research