Figure 1.
Experimental water volume regimes.
Constant (dashed) and reducing (solid) water volumes over time. Vertical lines represent times of photoperiod increment by 30 minutes.
Figure 2.
Mean larval growth trajectories in wet mass.
The ordinate axis was rescaled at 1000 mg to magnify the patterns during the early larval period, where the early cue demonstrated an accelerating effect on development. Error bars are SE.
Table 1.
Results for a repeated measures ANOVA test on larval mass growth up to day 58.
Table 2.
Results for a repeated measures ANOVA test on larval SVL growth up to day 58.
Figure 3.
Final phenotype reaction norms of mean time to- and size at metamorphosis.
Only the water level regime exerted a lasting effect on final phenotypes. Error bars are SE.
Figure 4.
Cumulative proportions of individual metamorphoses over time.
Metamorphoses in the ‘early cue’ treatments were skewed to the right compared to the ‘no early cue’ treatments in both water level regimes. Arrows indicate the times of maximal distances between the cumulative distributions.
Table 3.
Results for two-way ANOVA tests on SVL at- and time to metamorphosis.
Figure 5.
Larval mortality prior to metamorphosis.
Mortality rates were greater in the reducing, compared to the constant water level regime. Within this regime, the false negative early cue caused considerably greater mortality. No effect was found for the false positive early cue. All larval mortality occurred after day 75 of the experiment.
Table 4.
Results for planned contrasts on larval mortality.
Figure 6.
Trait developmental trajectories and their production costs.
(A) A simulation of trait development trajectories towards a required trait value, preq, under time limitations. Red and blue lines complete development by Tshort and Tlong, respectively. Solid lines stand for fixed developers that do not or cannot change their developmental rate. Dotted lines stand for plastic developers that change their developmental rate upon perception of information at tc. (B) Cumulative production costs for the corresponding developmental trajectories. (C) The additional accumulated costs of compensatory development as a function of the time of perception of reliable information. Red and blue lines accelerate or decelerate their initial rates of development to attain the required trait value at Tshort or Tlong, respectively.