Elevational Variation in Population and Age Structures of Rana sauteri

• Main Authors: Yi-Shan Hsieh, 謝宜珊
• Other Authors: Fu-Hsiung Hsu
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2004
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/47118496349884115911

碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 生物資源學系研究所 === 94 === Sauter’s frog, Rana sauteri Boulenger, 1909 in Taiwan during the elevations from 300 to 3,000 m showed obvious altitudinal clines in reproductive and life cycle traits. The populations in high elevation bred in spring and the populations in low elevation bred in autumn and winter. But the studies about the differences in population and age structures of Rana sauteri between different elevations are poor. Therefore, we sited seven survey sites of different elevations between 300 and 2,300 m in elevation in Ali Mountain area. The wild surveys were performed from March 2005 to March 2006. Mark-recapture and skeletochronology were used to understand the variation in the population structure, longevity, growth curve, age, and size of Rana sauteri. The results showed that the increase in elevation, the population sizes of Rana sauteri were larger in low elevation than those in high elevation. Body sizes of male were larger in low elevation than those in high elevation but not so significant in female. In the age structure, the populations in high elevation had longer longevity and larger mean age than those in low elevation. But there was no significance in the ages of male and female in the same survey sites. Rana sauteri is dimorphism. The mean of body sizes of female was bigger than that of male, but the mean of age had no difference between both. It may result from the mean of female’s growth speed was higher than that of male. The populations in low elevation had long period of breeding time, the mean of body size of male frog in earlier period was bigger than that in later period, but there was not obvious no significance in age.