Does living in streams with fish involve a cost of induced morphological defense?

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that chemical cues from brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) induce relatively longer caudal filaments and heavier exoskeletons in the mayfly Drunella coloradensis. These characters constitute morphological defences that reduce larval mortality from brook trout predation. There is also a potential fitness cost of living in streams with trout, as D. coloradensis females emerge at smaller sizes from streams with fish compared with females in streams without fish. In this study, we obtained additional data to evaluate the hypothesis that these costs of living in streams with fish could be attributed to inducible defences. A field survey of seven different streams showed that mature (black wing pad) female larvae from streams with fish invested a smaller proportion of their body mass in eggs than females maturing in streams without fish. Furthermore, a negative relationship between female allocation to eggs and to morphological defence characters (relative length of the caudal filament) provides evidence of a cost of inducible defences in this species.

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