Climate mediates the tradeoffs associated with phenotypic plasticity in an amphibian polyphenism

Polyphenisms occur when phenotypic plasticity produces morphologically distinct phenotypes from the same genotype. Plasticity is maintained through fitness tradeoffs which are conferred to different phenotypes under specific environmental contexts. Predicting the impacts of contemporary climate change on phenotypic plasticity is critical for climate sensitive animals like amphibians, but elucidating the selective pressures maintaining polyphenisms requires a framework to control for all mechanistic drivers of plasticity. Using a 32-year dataset documenting the larval and adult histories of 717 Arizona tiger salamanders (Ambystoma mavortium nebulosum), we determined how annual variation in climate and density-dependence explained the maintenance of two distinct morphs (terrestrial metamorph vs. aquatic paedomorph) in a high-elevation polyphenism. The effects of climate and conspecific density on morph development was evaluated with piecewise structural equation models (SEM) to tease apar..., See published manuscript for detailed methods., , **README FOR THE CSV DATA FILE (Salamander SEM_Data)**

* **Data on the adult and larval histories of 717 salamanders**

Unique ID's Unique identifier of individual salamanders based on toe clips or PIT tags
Pond Origin Pond of larval development
Morph Adult developmental (Meta, Paedo)
Morph1 Binary expression of adult morph development (1, 0)
Cohort Year of birth
Sex Male or Female
Age First Repro Age of first known reproduction
Max. Age Longevity
No. Breeding Years Number of years the animal was observed in a breeding state
Larval.Age Age of the larvae when captured (years)
Larval.SVL SVL of the larvae when captured (mm)
Pond.SVL Average SVL of all larvae in a pond (mm)
Relative.SVL SVL of the larvae when captured relative to the SVL of all other larvae in the pond (mm)
Larval.Cond Body condition (mass/SVL) of the larvae when captured
Larval.Year Year that the larvae was captured

* **Environmental conditions experience...