Articles
Age estimation and body size of the Parsley Frog, Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger, 1896 from Lake Borçka Karagöl, Turkey
Published 2023-02-16
Keywords
- weight,
- Von Bertalanffy,
- growth rate,
- Amphibia,
- age at maturity
How to Cite
Dursun, C., Gül, S., & Özdemir, N. (2023). Age estimation and body size of the Parsley Frog, Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger, 1896 from Lake Borçka Karagöl, Turkey. Acta Herpetologica, 18(1), 11–22. https://doi.org/10.36253/a_h-11995
Copyright (c) 2023 Cantekin Dursun, Serkan Gül, Nurhayat Özdemir
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
In this study, we described age structure, body size, body mass and the relationships among these parameters for a population of P. caucasicus from Lake Borçka Karagöl, Artvin, Turkey. The mean SVL with standard error was 45.87 mm ± 0.55 (range: 39.98-50.28 mm) and the mean weight with standard error 8.81 g ± 0.39 (range: 6.10-11.47 g) in females whereas 48.16 mm ± 0.45 (range: 43.64-54.78 mm) and 11.32 ± 0.25 (range: 9.56-14.80 g) in males, respectively. We found a significant male-biased difference reflecting sexual dimorphism and statistically significant positive relationships between these variables. According to the results, the age ranged between 2-5 years in females and 2-6 years in males. The mean age distributions significantly differed between the sexes (females: 3.28 years ± 0.19; males: 3.94 years ± 0.20). The mean ages and maximal ages were found identical to the previously reported results from Turkey, but the mean ages were higher than in Georgian populations. Von Bertalanffy growth models demonstrated similar curves, and the growth rate was faster up to 3 years in both sexes. To conclude, this study was the first to determine age structure and growth patterns in Borçka Karagöl population and weight data for P. caucasicus was presented for the first time in the literature.
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References
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Arıkan, H., Tosunoğlu, M., Atatür, M.K., Göçmen, B. (2007): Some Comments of the Breeding Biology of Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger, 1896 (Anura: Pelodytidae) from Uzungöl, Northeast Anatolia. Turk. J. Zool. 31: 53-64.
Baran, İ., Tosunoğlu, M., Kaya, U., Kumlutaş, Y. (1997): Çamlıhemşin Rize civarının Herpetofaunası hakkında. Doğa Türk Zooloji Dergisi. 21: 409-416.
Baty, F., Ritz, C., Charles, S., Brutsche, M., Flandrois, J.P., Delignette-Muller, M.L. (2015): A Toolbox for Nonlinear Regression in R: The Package nlstools. J. Stat. Softw. 66(5): 1-21.
Beverton, R.J.H., Holt, S.J. (1957): On the dynamics of exploited fish populations. Fisheries Investigations, United Kingdom Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Castanet, J., Smirina, E. (1990): Introduction to the skeletochronological method in amphibians and reptiles. Ann. Sci. Nat. Zool. 11: 191-196.
Caucasus Nature Fund (2020): https://www.caucasus-naturefund.org/ecoregion/caucasus-hotspot. [Accessed 31 Aug 2021].
Chubinishvili, T., Gokhelashvili, R.K., Tarkhnishvili, D.N. (1995): Population ecology of the Caucasian parsley frog (Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger) in the Borjomi Canyon. Russ J. Herpetol. 2(2): 79-86.
Çiçek, K., Yakın, B.Y., Afsar, M., Ayaz, D., Tok, C.V. (2019): Some records of Caucasian Parsley Frog and Caucasian Salamander from Eastern Blacksea Region, Turkey. Acta Biologica Turcica. 32(1): 37-41
Erişmiş, U.G., Arıkan, H., Konuk, M., Guarino, F.M. (2010): Age structure and growth in caucasian parsley frog Pelodytes caucasicus (Boulenger, 1896) from Turkey. Russ. J. Herpetol. 16: 19-26.
Esteban, M., Sánchez-Herráiz, M.J., Barbadillo, L.J., Castanet, J. (2004): Age structure and growth in an isolated population of Pelodytes punctatus in northern Spain. J. Nat. Hist. 38: 2789-2801.
Esteban, M., Sánchez-Herráiz, M.J., Barbadillo, L.J., Castanet, J., Márquez, R. (2002): Effects of age, size and temperature on the advertisement calls in two Spanish populations of Pelodytes punctatus. Amphib-reptil. 23: 249-258.
Fox, J., Weisberg, S. (2019): An R Companion to Applied Regression. Third Edition. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Gokhelashvili, R.K., Tarkhnishvili, D.N. (1994): Age structure of six Georgian anuran populations and its dynamics during two consequtive years (Anura). Herpetozoa. 7: 11-18.
Gül, S., Kumlutaş, Y., Ilgaz, Ç. (2018): Potential distribution under different climatic scenarios of climate change of the vulnerable Caucasian salamander (Mertensiella caucasica): A case study of the Caucasus Hotspot. Biologia. 73(2): 175-184.
Hudson, C.M., Fu, J. (2013): Male-Biased Sexual Size Dimorphism, Resource Defense Polygyny, and Multiple Paternity in the Emei Moustache Toad (Leptobrachium boringii). PLoS One. 8(6): e67502
Iskanderov, T. (2009): Current status of the Caucasus toad (Bufo verrucosissimus Pall., 1814) and Caucasus parsley frog (Pelodytes caucasicus Boul., 1896) in Azerbaijan. In: Status and Protection of Globally Threatened Species in the Caucasus, pp. 151 – 156. Zazanashvili, N., Mallon, D., Eds, CEPF, WWF. Contour Ltd, Tbilisi.
Kassambara, A. (2020): ggpubr: 'ggplot2' Based Publication Ready Plots. R package version 0.4.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ggpubr
Kaya, U., Tuniyev, B., Tuniyev, S., Kuzmin, S., Tarkhnishvili, D., Papenfuss, T., Sparreboom, M., Ugurtas, I., Anderson, S., Eken, G., Kiliç, T., Gem E. (2009): Pelodytes caucasicus. In: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2009.
Kleinenberg, S.E., Smirina, E.M. (1969): Method of determining the age of amphibians. Zool Zh. 48: 1090-1094.
Kupfer, A. (2007): Sexual size dimorphism in amphibians: an overview. In: Sex, size and gender roles: evolutionary studies of sexual size dimorphism, pp. 50–59. Fairbairn D., Blanckenhorn, W., Szekely, T., Eds, Oxford University Press, Cary, NC, USA.
Kurnaz, M., Bülbül, U., Eroğlu, A. İ., Uzun, F., Koc, H., Kutrup, B. (2018): Age and growth of the Artvin Lizard, Darevskia derjugini (NIKOLSKY, 1898), in Turkey. Herpetozoa. 30(3-4): 147-158.
Length, R.V. (2021): emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means. R package version 1.5.4. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=emmeans
Litvinchuk, S.N., Kidov, A.A. (2018): Distribution and conservation status of the Caucasian Parsley Frog, Pelodytes caucasicus (Amphibia: Anura). Nat. Conserv. Res. 3: 51-60.
Mittermeier, R.A., Robles, G.P., Hoffmann, M., Pilgrim, J., Brooks, T., Mittermeier, C.G., Lamoreux, J., da Fonseca, G.A.B. (2004): Hotspotsrevisited: Earth’s biologically richest and most endangered ecoregions. CEMEX, Mexico City.
Naseka, A.M. (2010): Zoogeographical freshwater divisions of the Caucasus as a part of the West Asian transitional region. Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS. 314: 469-492.
Ogle, D. (2020): FSAsim: Simulate Data for Fisheries Stock Assessment Methods. http://derekogle.com/fishr, https://github.com/droglenc/FSAsim
Ogle, D.H. (2013): fishR Vignette-von Bertalanffy growth models. Ashland, WI: Northland College, 54.
Ogle, D.H. (2019): FSAdata: Fisheries Stock Analysis, Datasets. R package version 0.3.8.
Ogle, D.H., Wheeler, P., Dinno, A. (2021): FSA: Fisheries Stock Analysis. R package version 0.8.32. https://github.com/droglenc/FSA
Özdemir N., Altunisik A., Ergül T., Gül S., Tosunoğlu M., Cadeddu G., Giacoma C. (2012): Variation in body size and age structure among three Turkish populations of the tree frog Hyla arborea. Amphib-reptil. 33: 25-35.
R Core Team (2020): R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
Revelle, W. (2019): psych: Procedures for Personality and Psychological Research. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA.
Santini, L., Benítez-López, A., Ficetola, G.F., Huijbregts, M.A.J. (2018): Length–mass allometries in amphibians. Integr Zool. 13: 36-45.
Schloerke, B., Cook, D., Larmarange, J., Briatte, F., Marbach, M., Thoen, E., Elberg, A., Crowley, J. (2021): GGally: Extension to 'ggplot2'. R package version 2.1.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=GGally
Shine, R. (1979). Sexual selection and sexual dimorphism in the Amphibia. Copeia. 2: 297-306.
Tarkhnishvili, D., Kaya, U. (2009): Status and Conservation of the Caucasian Salamander (Mertensiella caucasica). In: Status and protection of globally threatened species in the Caucasus, pp. 157-164. Zazanashvili, N., Mallon, D., Eds, CEPF, WWF, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Üzüm, N., Ilgaz, Ç., Kumlutaş, Y., Gümüş, Ç., Avcı, A. (2014): The body size, age structure, and growth of Bosc’s fringe-toed lizard, Acanthodactylus boskianus (Daudin, 1802). Turk J Zool. 38: 383-388.
Wickham, H. (2016): ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Williams, L., Zazanashvili, N., Sanadiradze, G., Kandaurov, A. (2006): An Ecoregional Conservation Plan for the Caucasus. Contour Ltd, Tbilisi.
Xiong, J., Gou, j., Huang, Y., Zhang, B., Ren, H., Tao, P. (2020): Age and Body Size of the Shangcheng Stout Salamander Pachyhynobius shangchengensis (Caudata: Hynobiidae) from Southeastern China. Asian Herpetol. Res. 11(3): 219-224.
Gen-Yu, B., Zheng, R.Q., Zhang, Y., Liu, C.T. (2010): Geographic variation in body size and sexual size dimorphism in the giant spiny frog Paa spinosa (David, 1875) (Anura: Ranoidae). J. Nat. Hist. 44:1729-1741.
Zazanashvili, N. (2009): The Caucasus hotspot. In: Status and protection of globally threatened species in the Caucasus. Zazanashvili, N., Mallon, D., Eds, CEPF, WWF, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Zazanashvili, N., Garforth, M., Jungius, H., Gamkrelidze, T., Montalvo, C. (2012): Ecoregion conservation plan for the Caucasus, revised and updated edition. Caucasus Biodiversity Council, Tbilisi.
AmphibiaWeb (2021): Information on amphibian biology and conservation. [web application]. Berkeley, California: AmphibiaWeb. Available: https://amphibiaweb.org/. [Accessed: 31 Aug 2021].
Ananjeva, N.B., Tuniyev, B.S., Orlov, N.L. (2009): Reassessment of the IUCN Red List for Amphibians and Reptiles of the Caucasus. In: Status and Protection 24 of Globally Threatened Species in the Caucasus, pp. 131-136. Zazanashvili, N., Mallon, D., Eds, CEPF, WWF. Contour Ltd, Tbilisi.
Arıkan, H., Tosunoğlu, M., Atatür, M.K., Göçmen, B. (2007): Some Comments of the Breeding Biology of Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger, 1896 (Anura: Pelodytidae) from Uzungöl, Northeast Anatolia. Turk. J. Zool. 31: 53-64.
Baran, İ., Tosunoğlu, M., Kaya, U., Kumlutaş, Y. (1997): Çamlıhemşin Rize civarının Herpetofaunası hakkında. Doğa Türk Zooloji Dergisi. 21: 409-416.
Baty, F., Ritz, C., Charles, S., Brutsche, M., Flandrois, J.P., Delignette-Muller, M.L. (2015): A Toolbox for Nonlinear Regression in R: The Package nlstools. J. Stat. Softw. 66(5): 1-21.
Beverton, R.J.H., Holt, S.J. (1957): On the dynamics of exploited fish populations. Fisheries Investigations, United Kingdom Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Castanet, J., Smirina, E. (1990): Introduction to the skeletochronological method in amphibians and reptiles. Ann. Sci. Nat. Zool. 11: 191-196.
Caucasus Nature Fund (2020): https://www.caucasus-naturefund.org/ecoregion/caucasus-hotspot. [Accessed 31 Aug 2021].
Chubinishvili, T., Gokhelashvili, R.K., Tarkhnishvili, D.N. (1995): Population ecology of the Caucasian parsley frog (Pelodytes caucasicus Boulenger) in the Borjomi Canyon. Russ J. Herpetol. 2(2): 79-86.
Çiçek, K., Yakın, B.Y., Afsar, M., Ayaz, D., Tok, C.V. (2019): Some records of Caucasian Parsley Frog and Caucasian Salamander from Eastern Blacksea Region, Turkey. Acta Biologica Turcica. 32(1): 37-41
Erişmiş, U.G., Arıkan, H., Konuk, M., Guarino, F.M. (2010): Age structure and growth in caucasian parsley frog Pelodytes caucasicus (Boulenger, 1896) from Turkey. Russ. J. Herpetol. 16: 19-26.
Esteban, M., Sánchez-Herráiz, M.J., Barbadillo, L.J., Castanet, J. (2004): Age structure and growth in an isolated population of Pelodytes punctatus in northern Spain. J. Nat. Hist. 38: 2789-2801.
Esteban, M., Sánchez-Herráiz, M.J., Barbadillo, L.J., Castanet, J., Márquez, R. (2002): Effects of age, size and temperature on the advertisement calls in two Spanish populations of Pelodytes punctatus. Amphib-reptil. 23: 249-258.
Fox, J., Weisberg, S. (2019): An R Companion to Applied Regression. Third Edition. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA.
Gokhelashvili, R.K., Tarkhnishvili, D.N. (1994): Age structure of six Georgian anuran populations and its dynamics during two consequtive years (Anura). Herpetozoa. 7: 11-18.
Gül, S., Kumlutaş, Y., Ilgaz, Ç. (2018): Potential distribution under different climatic scenarios of climate change of the vulnerable Caucasian salamander (Mertensiella caucasica): A case study of the Caucasus Hotspot. Biologia. 73(2): 175-184.
Hudson, C.M., Fu, J. (2013): Male-Biased Sexual Size Dimorphism, Resource Defense Polygyny, and Multiple Paternity in the Emei Moustache Toad (Leptobrachium boringii). PLoS One. 8(6): e67502
Iskanderov, T. (2009): Current status of the Caucasus toad (Bufo verrucosissimus Pall., 1814) and Caucasus parsley frog (Pelodytes caucasicus Boul., 1896) in Azerbaijan. In: Status and Protection of Globally Threatened Species in the Caucasus, pp. 151 – 156. Zazanashvili, N., Mallon, D., Eds, CEPF, WWF. Contour Ltd, Tbilisi.
Kassambara, A. (2020): ggpubr: 'ggplot2' Based Publication Ready Plots. R package version 0.4.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=ggpubr
Kaya, U., Tuniyev, B., Tuniyev, S., Kuzmin, S., Tarkhnishvili, D., Papenfuss, T., Sparreboom, M., Ugurtas, I., Anderson, S., Eken, G., Kiliç, T., Gem E. (2009): Pelodytes caucasicus. In: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2009.
Kleinenberg, S.E., Smirina, E.M. (1969): Method of determining the age of amphibians. Zool Zh. 48: 1090-1094.
Kupfer, A. (2007): Sexual size dimorphism in amphibians: an overview. In: Sex, size and gender roles: evolutionary studies of sexual size dimorphism, pp. 50–59. Fairbairn D., Blanckenhorn, W., Szekely, T., Eds, Oxford University Press, Cary, NC, USA.
Kurnaz, M., Bülbül, U., Eroğlu, A. İ., Uzun, F., Koc, H., Kutrup, B. (2018): Age and growth of the Artvin Lizard, Darevskia derjugini (NIKOLSKY, 1898), in Turkey. Herpetozoa. 30(3-4): 147-158.
Length, R.V. (2021): emmeans: Estimated Marginal Means, aka Least-Squares Means. R package version 1.5.4. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=emmeans
Litvinchuk, S.N., Kidov, A.A. (2018): Distribution and conservation status of the Caucasian Parsley Frog, Pelodytes caucasicus (Amphibia: Anura). Nat. Conserv. Res. 3: 51-60.
Mittermeier, R.A., Robles, G.P., Hoffmann, M., Pilgrim, J., Brooks, T., Mittermeier, C.G., Lamoreux, J., da Fonseca, G.A.B. (2004): Hotspotsrevisited: Earth’s biologically richest and most endangered ecoregions. CEMEX, Mexico City.
Naseka, A.M. (2010): Zoogeographical freshwater divisions of the Caucasus as a part of the West Asian transitional region. Proceedings of the Zoological Institute RAS. 314: 469-492.
Ogle, D. (2020): FSAsim: Simulate Data for Fisheries Stock Assessment Methods. http://derekogle.com/fishr, https://github.com/droglenc/FSAsim
Ogle, D.H. (2013): fishR Vignette-von Bertalanffy growth models. Ashland, WI: Northland College, 54.
Ogle, D.H. (2019): FSAdata: Fisheries Stock Analysis, Datasets. R package version 0.3.8.
Ogle, D.H., Wheeler, P., Dinno, A. (2021): FSA: Fisheries Stock Analysis. R package version 0.8.32. https://github.com/droglenc/FSA
Özdemir N., Altunisik A., Ergül T., Gül S., Tosunoğlu M., Cadeddu G., Giacoma C. (2012): Variation in body size and age structure among three Turkish populations of the tree frog Hyla arborea. Amphib-reptil. 33: 25-35.
R Core Team (2020): R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. https://www.R-project.org/
Revelle, W. (2019): psych: Procedures for Personality and Psychological Research. Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA.
Santini, L., Benítez-López, A., Ficetola, G.F., Huijbregts, M.A.J. (2018): Length–mass allometries in amphibians. Integr Zool. 13: 36-45.
Schloerke, B., Cook, D., Larmarange, J., Briatte, F., Marbach, M., Thoen, E., Elberg, A., Crowley, J. (2021): GGally: Extension to 'ggplot2'. R package version 2.1.0. https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=GGally
Shine, R. (1979). Sexual selection and sexual dimorphism in the Amphibia. Copeia. 2: 297-306.
Tarkhnishvili, D., Kaya, U. (2009): Status and Conservation of the Caucasian Salamander (Mertensiella caucasica). In: Status and protection of globally threatened species in the Caucasus, pp. 157-164. Zazanashvili, N., Mallon, D., Eds, CEPF, WWF, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Üzüm, N., Ilgaz, Ç., Kumlutaş, Y., Gümüş, Ç., Avcı, A. (2014): The body size, age structure, and growth of Bosc’s fringe-toed lizard, Acanthodactylus boskianus (Daudin, 1802). Turk J Zool. 38: 383-388.
Wickham, H. (2016): ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis. Springer-Verlag, New York.
Williams, L., Zazanashvili, N., Sanadiradze, G., Kandaurov, A. (2006): An Ecoregional Conservation Plan for the Caucasus. Contour Ltd, Tbilisi.
Xiong, J., Gou, j., Huang, Y., Zhang, B., Ren, H., Tao, P. (2020): Age and Body Size of the Shangcheng Stout Salamander Pachyhynobius shangchengensis (Caudata: Hynobiidae) from Southeastern China. Asian Herpetol. Res. 11(3): 219-224.
Gen-Yu, B., Zheng, R.Q., Zhang, Y., Liu, C.T. (2010): Geographic variation in body size and sexual size dimorphism in the giant spiny frog Paa spinosa (David, 1875) (Anura: Ranoidae). J. Nat. Hist. 44:1729-1741.
Zazanashvili, N. (2009): The Caucasus hotspot. In: Status and protection of globally threatened species in the Caucasus. Zazanashvili, N., Mallon, D., Eds, CEPF, WWF, Tbilisi, Georgia.
Zazanashvili, N., Garforth, M., Jungius, H., Gamkrelidze, T., Montalvo, C. (2012): Ecoregion conservation plan for the Caucasus, revised and updated edition. Caucasus Biodiversity Council, Tbilisi.