Fitness consequences of targeted gene flow to counter impacts of drying climates on terrestrial-breeding frogs

Abstract

Rudin-Bitterli et al. created pure and reciprocal crosses of the Australian crawling frog Pseudophryne guentheri among geographically distant populations to investigate fitness impacts of targeted gene flow in counteracting a drying environment. When reared on wet and dry soils, embryonic survival depended on the origin of gametes from each sex, highlighting the need to experimentally evaluate the outcomes of TGF prior to implementing management actions.