Abstract
Many amphibian populations are in decline worldwide. Surprisingly, few studies have examined how such declines may benefit mosquitoes. Amphibian larvae may compete with and prey upon mosquito larvae, and may alter oviposition habitat selection (OHS) of mosquito adults. However, often overlooked, observed among-pool egg distributions attributed to OHS may additionally or alternatively be explained by egg predation. Temporary pools of mountainous areas of the Mediterranean serve as larval habitat for both the mosquito, Culiseta longiareolata, and the salamander, Salamandra infraimmaculata. We found Culiseta larvae and egg rafts to be highly vulnerable to predation by pre-metamorphosing Salamandra larvae, but not to metamorphosing ones. In outdoor mesocosm experiments, oviposition avoidance by Culiseta females in response to caged Salamandra was not demonstrated regardless of salamander developmental stage. Egg raft abundance was significantly reduced in free-roaming, pre-metamorphosing Salamandra but not by metamorphosing ones. Thus, Salamandra larvae may have little deterrence on Culiseta oviposition. Instead, fewer egg rafts are attributed largely to egg predation. This study highlights the importance of egg raft predation in addition to OHS when interpreting the influence of predators on prey egg distributions. It also highlights that a cost of declining amphibian populations is their reduced impacts on mosquito populations.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 157-165 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Hydrobiologia |
Volume | 723 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Feb 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Acknowledgments We are grateful to the many participants of the European Pond Conservation Network Conference held in Luxembourg, 2012, to Ori Segev, Amots Dafni, and two anonymous reviewers for providing interesting and useful feedback and to Anna Gershberg and Eden Orion for technical help with the video of egg raft predation. This study was funded by Israel Science Foundation Grant 961-2008.
Keywords
- Culiseta longiareolata
- Egg predation
- Oviposition site selection
- Risk of predation
- Salamandra infraimmaculata
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Aquatic Science