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Do muscle contractile properties drive differences in locomotor performance in invasive populations of Xenopus laevis in France?

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Abstract

Jumping and swimming are key locomotor traits in frogs intimately linked to survival and dispersal. French populations of the frog Xenopus laevis from the invasion front are known to possess greater terrestrial locomotor endurance. Here, we tested whether individuals from the invasion front show differences in their muscle physiology that may underlie the observed whole-organism performance differences. We measured muscle contractile properties of the isolated gastrocnemius muscle in vitro, including isometric stress, activation and relaxation time, and work loop power output, both before and during a period of fatiguing contractions. We found that frogs from the centre of the range can produce tetanus force in their gastrocnemius muscle faster than animals from the periphery of the range, which could contribute to higher performance in one-off jumps. Yet, populations did not differ in muscle endurance. These results, coupled with previous work on this invasive population of Xenopus laevis, suggest that the greater stamina observed in individuals from the periphery may be more due to anatomical differences such as longer hind limbs and larger hearts along with potentially other as of yet untested physiological differences rather than differences in the mechanical properties of skeletal muscle.

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Data availability

The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

Research and capture permits were provided by the Préfet of the Deux-Sèvres department.

Funding

This research was funded by the ERA-Net BiodivERsA, with the national funders ANR, DFG, BELSPO and FCT, as part of the 2013 BiodivERsA call for research proposals. INVAXEN “Invasive biology of Xenopus laevis in Europe: ecology, impact and predictive models” project ANR-13-EBID-0008-01.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département Adaptations du Vivant, UMR 7179 C.N.R.S/M.N.H.N., 55 rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France

    Pablo Padilla, Julien Courant & Anthony Herrel

  2. Laboratory of Ecology and Conservation of Amphibians (LECA), Behavioural Biology Group, U. R. Freshwater and OCeanic Science Unit of reSearch (FOCUS), University of Liège, 22 Quai van Beneden, 4020, Liège, Belgique

    Pablo Padilla

  3. Centre for Sport, Exercise and Life Sciences, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, UK

    Jason Tallis, Josh Hurst & Rob S. James

  4. Evolutionary Morphology of Vertebrates, Ghent University, 9000, Ghent, Belgium

    Anthony Herrel

Authors
  1. Pablo Padilla
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  2. Jason Tallis
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  3. Josh Hurst
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  4. Julien Courant
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  5. Rob S. James
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  6. Anthony Herrel
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Contributions

Conceptualization: Anthony Herrel; Methodology: Rob S. James; Formal analysis and investigation: Pablo Padilla, Jason Tallis, Josh Hurst,Rob S. James, Anthony Herrel; Writing—original draft preparation: Pablo Padilla, Rob S. James, Anthony Herrel; Writing—review and editing: all authors; Funding acquisition: Anthony Herrel; Resources: Julien Courant; Supervision: Anthony Herrel, Rob S. James.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pablo Padilla.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Ethics approval

Ethics approval for the muscle mechanics experiments was provided by Coventry University (# P66560).

Additional information

Communicated by G. Heldmaier.

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Padilla, P., Tallis, J., Hurst, J. et al. Do muscle contractile properties drive differences in locomotor performance in invasive populations of Xenopus laevis in France?. J Comp Physiol B 190, 771–778 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00360-020-01310-4

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