Age estimation and body size of the Parsley Frog, Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger, 1896 from Lake Borçka Karagöl, Turkey
From Firenze University Press Journal: Acta Herpetologica
Cantekin Dursun, Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University
Serkan Gül, Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University
Nurhayat Özdemir, Department of Biology, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Recep Tayyip Erdogan University
The determination of individual age is essential for studies like demographic and life history, including developmental biology and population dynamics of a species. This provides the researchers basic ecological data related to population structure such as sexual maturity time, the age structure, growth rate, and life span. Moreover, this is a parameter essential to infer the life history traits of a species and to compare it to other species (de Buffrénil et al., 2021; Ma et al., 2022). In this context, skeletochronology is an effective and reliable method for estimating the growth and age of many amphibian species as the growth of amphibians is not independent of environmental conditions (Guarino et al., 2019; Üzüm et al., 2020). In addition, the method can be also applied to animals such as mammals (Nacarino-Meneses et al., 2016), lizards (Beşer et al., 2019), turtles (Guarino et al., 2020), and even fossils (de Buffrénil et al., 2021). Skeletochronology calculates the lines involving the formation of calcium carbonate, called “annual rings” or “growth markers” in bone tissues (Castanet, 1994; Ma et al., 2022). For this, the diaphyseal region of their long bones, which show weaker vascularity, provides the best result for calculat-ing the age of individuals (Castanet et al., 1993). Rozen-blut and Ogielska (2005) showed that lines of arrested growth (LAGs) are most complete in the middle part of the phalangeal diaphysis in European water frogs and thus pointed out that the middle part of the long bone is optimal for age studies. Moreover, the skeletochronol-ogy helps to calculate the lifespan of the population in amphibians, explain the sexual size dimorphism, and reveal the differences between the sexes in terms of age and size. Also, the knowledge based on the skeletochro-nological studies tends to show population dynamics (Peng et al., 2021).Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger, 1896, the Caucasian parsley frog, is a native species of the Caucasus fauna. The species is distributed throughout northwest Azer-baijan, Georgia (southwest and South Ossetia), Russia (Krasnodar district), and Turkey (Blacksea region) (Zaza-nashvili et al., 2012; Litvinchuk and Kidov, 2018; Çiçek et al., 2019). The species is considered as near threatened because of natural and anthropogenic pressures (Anan-jeva et al., 2009; Iskanderov, 2009; Kaya et al. 2009), so it is recommended that public campaigns should be conducted to raise the awareness for this endemic relict species in the border of Georgia and Turkey (Tarkhnish-vili and Kaya, 2009). From this aspect, it is important to reveal the population dynamics of P. caucasicus in a new population based on skeletochronology. Although the age structure of P. caucasicus was reported by two studies in Georgia (Gokhelasvili and Tarkhnisvili, 1994; Chubinish-vili et al., 1995), there is only single study in the border of Turkey (Erişmiş et al., 2009). Given the importance of skeletochronological information to better understand the population dynamics, ecological and evolutional pro-cesses, we aimed to present the age structure of the Borçka Karagöl population for the first time and compare the results with the previous studies. We also provided weight data for the first time in this species, as well as assessed the relationship between this trait and SVL for age and growth rate.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.36253/a_h-11995
Read Full Text: https://oaj.fupress.net/index.php/ah/article/view/11995
