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Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world

Specialization is typically inferred at population and species level but in the last decade many authors highlighted this trait at the individual level, finding that generalist populations can be composed by both generalist and specialist individual. Despite hundreds of reported cases of individual...

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Autores principales: Costa, Andrea, Salvidio, Sebastiano, Posillico, Mario, Matteucci, Giorgio, De Cinti, Bruno, Romano, Antonio
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4543951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26292804
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep13260
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author Costa, Andrea
Salvidio, Sebastiano
Posillico, Mario
Matteucci, Giorgio
De Cinti, Bruno
Romano, Antonio
author_facet Costa, Andrea
Salvidio, Sebastiano
Posillico, Mario
Matteucci, Giorgio
De Cinti, Bruno
Romano, Antonio
author_sort Costa, Andrea
collection PubMed
description Specialization is typically inferred at population and species level but in the last decade many authors highlighted this trait at the individual level, finding that generalist populations can be composed by both generalist and specialist individual. Despite hundreds of reported cases of individual specialization there is a complete lack of information on inter-individual diet variation in specialist species. We studied the diet of the Italian endemic Spectacled Salamander (Salamandrina perspicillata), in a temperate forest ecosystem, to disclose the realised trophic niche, prey selection strategy in function of phenotypic variation and inter-individual diet variation. Our results showed that Salamandrina is highly specialized on Collembola and the more specialized individuals are the better performing ones. Analyses of inter-individual diet variation showed that a subset of animals exhibited a broader trophic niche, adopting different foraging strategies. Our findings reflects the optimal foraging theory both at population and individual level, since animals in better physiological conditions are able to exploit the most profitable prey, suggesting that the two coexisting strategies are not equivalent. At last this species, feeding on decomposers of litter detritus, could play a key role determining litter retention rate, nutrient cycle and carbon sequestration.
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spelling pubmed-45439512015-09-01 Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world Costa, Andrea Salvidio, Sebastiano Posillico, Mario Matteucci, Giorgio De Cinti, Bruno Romano, Antonio Sci Rep Article Specialization is typically inferred at population and species level but in the last decade many authors highlighted this trait at the individual level, finding that generalist populations can be composed by both generalist and specialist individual. Despite hundreds of reported cases of individual specialization there is a complete lack of information on inter-individual diet variation in specialist species. We studied the diet of the Italian endemic Spectacled Salamander (Salamandrina perspicillata), in a temperate forest ecosystem, to disclose the realised trophic niche, prey selection strategy in function of phenotypic variation and inter-individual diet variation. Our results showed that Salamandrina is highly specialized on Collembola and the more specialized individuals are the better performing ones. Analyses of inter-individual diet variation showed that a subset of animals exhibited a broader trophic niche, adopting different foraging strategies. Our findings reflects the optimal foraging theory both at population and individual level, since animals in better physiological conditions are able to exploit the most profitable prey, suggesting that the two coexisting strategies are not equivalent. At last this species, feeding on decomposers of litter detritus, could play a key role determining litter retention rate, nutrient cycle and carbon sequestration. Nature Publishing Group 2015-08-21 /pmc/articles/PMC4543951/ /pubmed/26292804 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep13260 Text en Copyright © 2015, Macmillan Publishers Limited http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Costa, Andrea
Salvidio, Sebastiano
Posillico, Mario
Matteucci, Giorgio
De Cinti, Bruno
Romano, Antonio
Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world
title Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world
title_full Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world
title_fullStr Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world
title_full_unstemmed Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world
title_short Generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world
title_sort generalisation within specialization: inter-individual diet variation in the only specialized salamander in the world
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4543951/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26292804
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep13260
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