DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1r3s2
title: Data from: Trade-offs between water loss and gas exchange influence habitat suitability of a woodland salamander

description: 1. Reversible acclimation increases resilience to environmental stress,
 but acclimation may have hidden costs due to underlying links between
 related physiological traits. Interactions between physiological traits
 might result in trade-offs that undermine whole-organism performance if
 the change in a related trait reduces the net benefits of acclimation or
 increases susceptibility to alternative environmental stressors. 2.
 Metabolic rate and water loss rate are two fundamental physiological
 traits that could interact due to their dependence on gas exchange across
 shared physical surfaces. Reductions in water loss rate in response to
 dehydration stress might reduce metabolic rate by constraining the flux of
 both water and oxygen. 3. We examined acclimation of metabolic rate and
 water loss rate using a species of woodland salamander (Plethodon
 metcalfi) in response to temperature and humidity using a full factorial
 experimental design. We controlled the evaporative demand of the air
 across temperatures to assess temperature and humidity as independent cues
 for acclimation. We predicted that reductions in water loss rate would
 coincide with reductions in metabolic rate in response to temperature due
 to shared physical and chemical pathways. We also assessed acclimation of
 heart rates as a potential compensatory mechanism used to promote oxygen
 delivery. We integrated these responses into a biophysical model developed
 from first principles to demonstrate the potential for these interactions
 to influence habitat suitability. 4. We found that reductions of water
 loss rates during thermal acclimation were associated with simultaneous
 reductions in metabolic rates, and we did not find a compensatory response
 in heart rates. We suggest that these linkages underlie whole-organism
 strategies (e.g., physiological dormancy or arousal) for reducing the
 energetic costs imposed by warm temperatures. The biophysical model
 suggested that the interaction between these two traits potentially
 structures phenotypic variation in our population because certain
 combinations of trait values were incapable of reaching positive energy
 balance. 5. Trade-offs between linked physiological traits potentially
 structure whole-organism strategies for responding to environmental
 stressors and constrain phenotypic variation.
description: heart_rate_dataThe following data was collected from the complementary experiment on the thermal sensitivity of heart rates before and after the exposure to the temperature and humidity treatments.complementary_resid_dataThe following dataset is from the complementary experiment, and it contains the data for the trade-off between skin resistance to water loss and metabolic rate.trade_off_datasetThe following data was used to generate Figure 1 in the publication, and it contains the skin resistance to water loss, volume of oxygen consumption, and the residuals of these traits regressed against mass for every individual across every time point during the acclimation experiment.energy_figure_simuationThese data were generated using our biophysical modeling approach. The mean_energy column represents data that includes the trade-off whereas the mean_J_notrade represents data without the trade-off.activity_figure_simuationThese data were used to generate the activity figure (Fig 4), and it contains estimates of average nightly activity (mean column) over the year assuming conditions are 25% drier than average conditions (roughly what salamanders experience during the driest conditions associated with activity).