Relationships between environmental features, aggressive behaviour and morphology in fire salamander larvae

Females of the fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) can lay their larvae both in epigean and underground springs and it has been observed that food scarcity and high density conditions in subterranean habitats can favour an aggressive behaviour among larvae. Furthermore several studies on other species of salamanders showed the existence of morphological differences between cannibalistic and non-cannibalistic larvae. "e aim of this preliminary field study is to assess if also in the fire salamander morphological differences exist and which role environmental factors and aggressiveness play on them. We temporary captured larvae from several epigean and hypogean springs and performed some ethological test on them; we also recorded some environmental parameters in each sampling site and some morphometric features of larvae that we subsequently analyzed using both traditional and geometric morphometry techniques. Larvae from different habitats showed differences in head morphology but neither the environmental factors nor aggressiveness were related to morphological differences. "e site of origin (cave vs. epigeous) resulted to be the most significant factor.