MECANISMOS DE ADAPTACIÓN ECOFISIOLÓGICA DE ANFIBIOS ANUROS A ZONAS ÁRIDAS (original) (raw)

Anuran amphibians are vertebrate animals, which have a process of metamorphosis and spend part of their lives in water and another on land. In land, most of them remain close to wet areas, although some species have adapted to arid environments, characterized by low levels of humidity, saline soils and high temperatures. The anurans have high phenotypic plasticity, with which they manage to develop various mechanisms of ecophysiological adaptation because of the adverse conditions of this type of environment, including phenotypic plasticity, acceleration of development, formation of burrows and cocoons, estivation, osmoregulation (where the hydric balance, formation of urine and excretion of nitrogen are involved), and thermoregulation (obtained by the reflectance, coloration of the skin, decrease of metabolism and the corporal posture). Each type of anuran that lives in arid zones presents one or several ecophysiological mechanisms that favor its adaptation to that ecosystem. Therefore, this contribution aims to explain in a general way the main mechanisms of ecophysiological adaptation of anuran amphibians to arid zones. The information synthesized in this work is fundamental to understand these mechanisms and could be very useful in the conservation of such species and the ecosystems where they live.

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