Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Cothran, Rickey D.
• Brown, Jenise M.
• Relyea, Rick A.

Titel

Proximity to agriculture is correlated with pesticide tolerance: evidence for the evolution of amphibian resistance to modern pesticides

Ist Teil von

• Evolutionary applications, 2013-07, Vol.6 (5), p.832-841

Ort / Verlag

England: John Wiley & Sons, Inc

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB-FREE-00999 freely available EZB journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• Anthropogenic environmental change is a powerful and ubiquitous evolutionary force, so it is critical that we determine the extent to which organisms can evolve in response to anthropogenic environmental change and whether these evolutionary responses have associated costs. This issue is particularly relevant for species of conservation concern including many amphibians, which are experiencing global declines from many causes including widespread exposure to agrochemicals. We used a laboratory toxicity experiment to assess variation in sensitivity to two pesticides among wood frog (Lithobates sylvaticus) populations and a mesocosm experiment to ascertain whether resistance to pesticides is associated with decreased performance when animals experience competition and fear of predation. We discovered that wood frog populations closer to agriculture were more resistant to a common insecticide (chlorpyrifos), but not to a common herbicide (Roundup). We also found no evidence that this resistance carried a performance cost when facing competition and the fear of predation. To our knowledge, this is the first study demonstrating that organophosphate insecticide (the most commonly applied class of insecticides in the world) resistance increases with agricultural land use in an amphibian, which is consistent with an evolutionary response to agrochemicals.