Terrestrial isopods have evolved pleopodal lungs that provide access to the rich aerial supply of oxygen. However, isopods occupy conditions with wide and unpredictable thermal and oxygen gradients, suggesting that they might have evolved adaptive developmental plasticity in their respiratory organs to help meet metabolic demand over a wide range of oxygen conditions.

To explore this plasticity, we conducted an experiment in which we reared common rough woodlice (Porcellio scaber) from eggs to maturation at different temperatures (15 and 22 °C) combined with different oxygen levels (10% and 22% O2). We sampled animals during development (only females) and then examined mature adults (both sexes). We compared woodlice between treatments with respect to the area of their pleopod exopodites (our proxy of lung size) and the shape of Bertalanffy’s equations (our proxy of individual growth curves).

Generally, males exhibited larger lungs than females relative to body size. Woodlice also grew relatively fast but achieved a decreased asymptotic body mass in response to warm conditions; the oxygen did not affect growth. Under hypoxia, growing females developed larger lungs compared to under normoxia, but only in the late stage of development. Among mature animals, this effect was present only in males. Woodlice reared under warm conditions had relatively small lungs, in both developing females (the effect was increased in relatively large females) and among mature males and females.

Our results demonstrated that woodlice exhibit phenotypic plasticity in their lung size. We suggest that this plasticity helps woodlice equilibrate their gas exchange capacity to differences in the oxygen supply and metabolic demand along environmental temperature and oxygen gradients. The complex pattern of plasticity might indicate the effects of a balance between water conservation and oxygen uptake, which would be especially pronounced in mature females that need to generate an aqueous environment inside their brood pouch.