Some of a green frog’s heat tolerance might come from its microbiome.
Put a wood frog tadpole and a green frog tadpole in water and turn up the heat. The two species live in similar environments, but green frog tadpoles just keep swimming in water that’s up to 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer.
But when scientists transferred the gut microbiome of a green frog (Lithobates clamitans) to the eggs of a wood frog (L. sylvaticus), the wood frog larvae could handle short stints at higher water temperatures, Jason Dallas and colleagues report September 7 on bioRxiv.org. The study reveals one reason some species might be more, or less, sensitive to
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