Dry-season retreat and dietary shift of the dart-poison frog Dendrobates tinctorius (Anura Dendrobatidae).docVIP

Phyllomedusa 9(1):37-52, 2010 ? 2010 Departamento de Ciências Biológicas - ESALQ - USP ISSN 1519-1397 Dry-season retreat and dietary shift of the dart-poison frog Dendrobates tinctorius (Anura: Dendrobatidae) Marga Born1, Frans Bongers1, Erik H. Poelman2 and Frank J. Sterck1 1 Forest Ecology and Forest Management Group, Center for Ecosystem Studies, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mails: marga.born@planet.nl, frans.bongers@wur.nl, frank.sterck@wur.nl. 2 Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 8031, 6700 EH Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: erik.poelman@wur.nl. Abstract Dry-season retreat and dietary shift of the dart-poison frog Dendrobates tinctorius (Anura: Dendrobatidae). Seasonal rainfall affects tropical forest dynamics and behavior of species that are part of these ecosystems. The positive correlation between amphibian activity patterns and rainfall has been demonstrated repeatedly. Members of Dendrobatidae, a clade of Neotropical dart-poison frogs, are well known for their habitat use and behavior during the rainy season, but their behavior during the dry season has received little attention. We studied habitat use and diet of the dendrobatid frog Dendrobates tinctorius in French Guiana during the rainy and dry seasons. Unlike many other dendrobatid frogs, D. tinctorius does not maintain territories for the entire rainy season. Both sexes colonize recently formed canopy-gaps and stay in these forest patches for only a few weeks. The frogs in these patches consume a great diversity of prey, consisting of ants, beetles, wasps, insect larvae, and mites. During the dry season, frogs move to retreat sites in mature forest, such as palm bracts and tree holes. The frogs are less active and consume fewer prey items in the dry season, and they consume fewer wasps and insect larvae, but more termites. Ants a