Variation in brain anatomy in frogs and its possiblebearing on their locomotor ecology

• Adriana S. Manzano ^[1] ; Anthony Herrel ^[2] ; Anne Claire Fabre ^[2] ; Virginia Abdala ^[3]
  1. [1] CONICET‐UADER Entre Ríos Argentina
  2. [2] Département d'Ecologie et de Gestion de la Biodiversité Paris Cedex France
  3. [3] Instituto de Biología Neotropical‐CONICET. Argentina

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• Localización: Journal of Anatomy, ISSN 0021-8782, Vol. 231, Nº. 1, 2017, págs. 38-58
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Despite the long-standing interest in the evolution of the brain, relatively little is known about variation inbrain anatomy in frogs. Yet, frogs are ecologically diverse and, as such, variation in brain anatomy linked todifferences in lifestyle or locomotor behavior can be expected. Here we present a comparative morphologicalstudy focusing on the macro- and micro-anatomy of the six regions of the brain and its choroid plexus: theolfactory bulbs, the telencephalon, the diencephalon, the mesencephalon, the rhombencephalon, and thecerebellum. We also report on the comparative anatomy of the plexus brachialis responsible for the innervationof the forelimbs. It is commonly thought that amphibians have a simplified brain organization, associated withtheir supposedly limited behavioral complexity and reduced motor skills. We compare frogs with differentecologies that also use their limbs in different contexts and for other functions. Our results show that brainmorphology is more complex and more variable than typically assumed. Moreover, variation in brainmorphology among species appears related to locomotor behavior as suggested by our quantitative analyses.Thus we propose that brain morphology may be related to the locomotor mode, at least in the frogs includedin our analysis.