The Herpetological Journal
The Herpetological Journal is the Society's prestigious quarterly scientific journal. Articles are listed in Biological Abstracts, Current Awareness in Biological Sciences,Current Contents, Science Citation Index, and Zoological Record.
ISSN 0268-0130
2021 Impact Factor from Clarivate for the Herpetological Journal is 1.194, an increase of 0.332 from 2020.
pdf 05. Clues on the warming vulnerability of a water frog Telmatobius rubigo (Anura: Telmatobiidae) from the arid Central Andes of Argentina
1 download
Subscription / purchase required
pp. 136-145
Authors: María Soledad Gastón & Mauricio Sebastián Akmentins
Abstract: Warming climate is one of the main threats affecting the fitness and survival of amphibians, the most threatened vertebrate class. Proxies such as the critical thermal maximum (CTmax) and the thermal safety margin, which can change during the ontogeny, have been developed to know the vulnerability to warming. Telmatobius rubigo is a fully aquatic frog of high-altitude lotic freshwater ecosystems and is an endemic species from the Central Andean Puna ecoregion of north-western Argentina. The species lives and reproduces in shallow permanent streams, which could represent a challenge in a warming climate because the water's high heat capacity and thermal diffusivity allow an amphibian to exchange heat with its environment rapidly. Here, we study thermal biology traits—field-body temperature, operative range of environmental temperatures and upper thermal limits—of T. rubigo during the warmer months of the year to estimate the species’ tolerance to a warming climate. Telmatobius rubigo has field-body temperatures positively related to water temperatures. A positive association between the daily means of air and water temperatures was observed for the warmer months in the microhabitat occupied by T. rubigo. A similar association was observed for daily maximum air and water temperatures in warmer months. Despite the wide variability of air temperatures in the highlands where T. rubigo lives, the species' refuges have a narrow water temperature range during the day. An intraspecific variation in upper thermal limits—CTmax and thermal safety margin—due to ontogenetic stages was observed, with tadpoles more tolerant to heating than adults. This study presents the most comprehensive data on the thermal biology of one species of the Telmatobiidae family providing suggestions to guide further studies on high-altitude aquatic amphibians.
Keywords: amphibian, climate crisis, high-altitude stream, thermal biology, CTmax
Download Access:
The latest 8 issues can be downloaded when logged in with a Herpetological Journal subscription membership.
Individual articles can be purchased for download.
Older issues and occasional Open Access articles are available for public download
Submissions:
For further information and submission guidelines please see our Journal Instructions to Authors
Latest Issue
IMPORTANT NOTE - JUNE 2020
Please note that as from Volume 31 Number 1 (January 2021) on, the Herpetological Journal will be available as an online publication only - the last print edition will be Volume 30 Number 4.
Aligning with this change, it is now no longer possible to purchase a subscription that includes a print copy of the HJ. All members who have existing HJ print subscriptions that remain active as at end June 2020 will receive the full four 2020 print editions. New subscribers or renewals after this time will only have option to subscribe to the online only subscription package. Subscription pricing has been amended to reflect the content changes.