Adaptation of Larval Development of the Common Frog () to a Shorter Activity Season and Its Putative Genetic Basis

The development of most amphibian species occurs in an aquatic environment and the duration of larval development largely depends on the ambient temperature. As shown earlier (Richter-Boix et al., 2011), natural selection may influence the frequency of alleles of the RC08604 locus which lies in the regulatory region of the thyroid receptor gene TRβ, in populations of living in conditions with varying average annual temperatures. Our study of the allelic composition of microsatellites, including the RC08604 locus, in of an introduced population from Kamchatka and from the native range of the species from the Moscow Region shows that the differences between these populations in F of the study microsatellite loci can be considered insignificant, except for the RC08604 locus. This difference of the RC08604 locus from other loci corresponds to a faster growth up to metamorphosis in larvae from the Kamchatka population. This difference in larval growth rate was revealed through breeding under the same laboratory conditions. Apparently, the differences between the two study populations are the result of a rapid adaptation of the Kamchatka population to a comparatively short activity season. This could have been developed only 10 years following the formation of that population.