Interspecific patterns for egg and clutch sizes of African Bufonidae (Amphibia: Anura)

摘要: Little is known about reproductive trade-offs in African amphibians, but such data, particularly the form of quantitative measurements, are a key for investigating life history evolution. Here we compile and analyze data on bufonids from published material new preserved museum specimens, to investigate interspecific patterns egg clutch sizes variation. Our composite mixed sources, including ova dissected females laid clutches observations field. study shows that, as body size increases, increases decreases, when correcting size, inversely correlated with size. These parameter interactions however, different modes. In free-swimming larval developing species, same trends recovered, lecithotrophic viviparous species no significant correlations could be recovered nor trade-off between positively related The Nimbaphrynoides occidentalis (Angel, 1943) clear outlier, which may due its matrotrophic reproduction. addition, observed statistical difference collected dissections field observations, suggests that dataset has utility comparative analyses.