. Current herpetology. Reptiles; Herpetology. 76 Current Herpetol. 21(2) 2002 some Japanese amphibians, such as Bufo japonicus (Matsui, 1989), Hynobius nigre- scens (Takahashi and Iwasawa, 1988), and H. tokyoensis (Kusano and Hayase, 1990). Nev- ertheless, litde informadon is yet available regarding the quantitative aspect of egg size and other clutch parameters for most Japanese amphibians. In many populations or species, egg size is correlated with female body size: larger females produce larger eggs (see Roff, 1992). There- fore, when we analyze egg size variation, the relationship between
. Current herpetology. Reptiles; Herpetology. 76 Current Herpetol. 21(2) 2002 some Japanese amphibians, such as Bufo japonicus (Matsui, 1989), Hynobius nigre- scens (Takahashi and Iwasawa, 1988), and H. tokyoensis (Kusano and Hayase, 1990). Nev- ertheless, litde informadon is yet available regarding the quantitative aspect of egg size and other clutch parameters for most Japanese amphibians. In many populations or species, egg size is correlated with female body size: larger females produce larger eggs (see Roff, 1992). There- fore, when we analyze egg size variation, the relationship between female body size and egg size must be taken into consideration. However, the correlation just noted is not always the case: for example, in some amphibian popula- tions or species, egg size does not depend on female size (, Howard, 1978; Kuramoto, 1978). Rana sakuraii has the unique ecological trait of breeding in streams (Matsui and Matsui, 1990). Stream breeders are a minor group among Japanese anurans: of the 38 anuran species found in Japan, only seven {Buergeria buergeri, Bufo torrenticola, four species of the R. narina complex, and this species) are typical stream breeders (Maeda and Matsui, 1999). Lotic environments in streams differ physically and ecologically from lentic ones such as those in ponds, and are usually very severe for both breeding adults and larvae. Stream breeders, therefore, must have devel- oped unique morphological, reproductive, and life history traits. The way by which these anurans breed successfully in lotic environ- ments is an interesting issue. At present, however, we have rather litde information on stream breeders as compared to pond breed- ers. We beheve that elucidation of reproduc- tive ecology of stream breeders would provide valuable information for better understanding of the evolution of reproductive strategies in anurans. In the present paper, we examine clutch parameters in relation to female body size in R. sakuraii and its clos
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