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National Allotments Week 

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Written by Paul Arestides, Transforming Lives Trainee. 

It’s National Allotments Week which will run from 12th-18th August 2024. The week marks the 22nd year of celebrating allotments through The National Allotment Society‘s annual awareness campaign.

As part of this, they will be celebrating and educating on pollinators, wildlife, eco-friendly pest control, companion planting, soil health and much more.

This years theme will be ‘Celebrating Biodiversity on UK allotments’. There is no better way to embrace this than creating a pond for you and all the people on the allotments to enjoy. Why not create a community pond inviting people to join in? There is loads of advice in our Just Add Water booklet.

Creating a pond on an allotment is becoming more popular. The UK has lost so many ponds to development and intensive farming that these small havens can only be beneficial. Toads, frogs, and newts will readily take up residency and are very helpful for anyone growing fruit and veg, feeding on invertebrates, slugs and many more creatures that can be a challenge for gardeners to cope with. 

A healthy population of amphibians in your garden will help you control these pest species without the use of chemicals, so it’s a positive for everyone! 

You can visit our website to find out more about wildlife-friendly features for your allotment and all the benefits they can bring.

All About Adders

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Written by Charles Bonnett, Transforming Lives Trainee. 

The common European adder (Vipera berus) is one of three native species of snake found in the UK. It is unique amongst our native snakes in it’s ability to produce venom, contributing to their undeserved dangerous reputation. Beyond this reputation, they are notable for their distinct physical characteristics, unique population distributions, and place in folklore and mythology.

 

Physical Characteristics

Adders are small but stocky, growing up to a length of 60-80cm. They can be found in several colourations, varying from silver-grey in males to brown and copper in females. Melanistic adders can also be seen rarely, in which the increased amount of black pigmentation portrays a uniform black colour. Their distinct zig-zag pattern which extends down their back is also one of their most recognisable physical traits, and can be an ideal characteristic to look out for should you catch a glimpse of what you suspect may be an adder. Keep an eye out for a reddish iris as well, as this can be a distinctive feature.

 

Distribution and Habitat

The adder is notable for its ability to survive in northerly habitats, where it has been recorded as far north as the Arctic Circle; amazingly, this means that no snake can be found further north than the adder. Adders prefer open habitats, such as heathland, moorland, and sea cliffs. Ideally, their wider habitat contains a diverse and sporadic vegetation structure, and comprises of transitional zones between connected habitats; this offers suitable protection from predation, access to locations suitable for basking and hibernation, and abundant prey.

 

Hunting Behaviour and Diet

Whilst we’re on the topic of prey, adders will eat a range of animals, but have a preference for small mammals, such as voles and mice. They will also eat small amphibians, including frogs and newts, and they may try their luck with nesting birds. In warmer weather, they adopt a more active hunting approach, whilst during colder conditions they prefer ambush-style tactics. Once they have locked onto their potential target, they immobilise and subdue it via their venom, after which they consume their victim whole. Remarkably, due to their ectothermic nature and slow digestion time, they can survive on very small quantities of food – as little as a single small mammal a month!

 

Adders and Humans

Adders and humans have had a long and complicated history. In English folklore, an adder on your doorstep was considered a bad omen; likewise, serpents more generally have historically been associated with deception and evil.

Our modern relationship continues to become more intricate. Adders are a protected species under Section 9 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. It is therefore illegal to injure, kill or sell this species.

Despite this, adder populations are struggling in the UK. As we discussed earlier, many people are fearful of adders – despite the fact that they very rarely attack humans and are very reserved – which unfortunately results in undue prosecution. Similarly, human activity, including infrastructure development leading to habitat loss and fragmentation, human-driven climate change, and pesticide use, have further negatively impacted adder populations.

Ultimately, adders deserve an opportunity to continue to co-exist alongside humans. Their remarkable ecology, ecological importance, and unique characteristics surely emphasise the need for continued education and conservation surrounding our amazing adders.

If you see an adder, or any other reptiles, you can record your sighting on our free Dragon Finder app, which will assist with our reptile conservation efforts.

Earth Overshoot Day

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Written by Emma Byrne, Transforming Lives Trainee. 

As human beings, we are constantly liquidating stocks of ecological resources and accumulating waste, primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

The Global Footprint Network is an international organisation that decided to mark the day human consumption of ecological resources exceeds the Earth’s capacity to regenerate said resources each year. They work this out by calculating the number of days that year, the Earth’s biocapacity, (the amount of natural resources regenerated by Earth that year) and suffices to provide for humanity’s Ecological Footprint (humanity’s consumption of Earth’s natural resources for that year). This year the date for Earth Overshoot Day will be 1st August.

Wildfires, floods, and other extreme weather are all symptoms of too much carbon in the atmosphere. To tackle the climate emergency, it is vital that we reduce greenhouse gas emissions and absorb excess carbon already in the atmosphere to avoid further warming of the planet. This begs the question…what can we do to help?

Here at Froglife, one way we are working towards reducing the effects of too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is by managing and preserving nature reserves.

Nature reserves help towards climate change reduction through carbon sequestration. Greenhouse gas emissions are captured by woodland, peatlands, heaths, and species-rich grasslands. Trees, wetlands, and other ecosystems are perfectly adapted to soak carbon dioxide and store it. Natural England states that their 141 nature reserves remove up to 185,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year from our atmosphere!

Nature reserves are like intensive care units for wildlife where conservation teams create, manage, and protect habitats for flora and fauna. Not only do they help with carbon sequestration, but also water quality, pollination, and species loss/extinction. At Froglife, we currently manage three nature reserves on behalf of the landowners, each located near Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

Follow this link for further information on what each reserve has to offer. 

 

References

Earth Overshoot Day (2024) Earth Overshoot Day. Available at: https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/ (Accessed 02/07/2024).

Global Footprint Network (2024), Footprint Network. Available at: www.overshootday.org (Accessed 08/07/2024), illus.

Global Footprint Network (2024) Global Footprint Network. Available at: https://www.footprintnetwork.org/about-us/ (Accessed 02/07/2024).

Gov.UK (2023) Gov.UK. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-nature-reserves-offer-36-million-of-benefits-to-society#:~:text=The%20report%20estimates%20that%20the,5.5%20million%20visits%20a%20year (Accessed 02/07/2024).

Book Review: One Garden against the World- in search of hope in a changing climate by Kate Bradbury

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Written by Roger Downie, Froglife and University of Glasgow

After obtaining a degree in politics, then training in horticulture, Kate Bradbury has become a busy wildlife/gardening writer (newspapers, magazines and books- this is her sixth book since 2017) and broadcaster, including on BBC’s Springwatch. Among her many roles, she is a Patron of Froglife, so supporters of Froglife will not be surprised that an enthusiasm for amphibians and reptiles is a theme of the book, and may be aware of one of her previous books, How to Create a Wildlife Pond (2021).

One Garden is Kate’s second memoir, following The Bumblebee Flies Anyway- a memoir of love, loss and muddy hands (2019). In the acknowledgements section, she writes that the book has been ‘challenging to write’, but the reader would hardly be aware of that, given the apparently easy conversational style and chatty asides to her dog Tosca,  the hedgehogs that visit her garden, the frogs, plants and her partner Emma. So this is an entertaining, inspiring and informative read.

After a prologue summarizing the twin/linked biodiversity and climate crises, including continuing habitat mismanagement in towns (over-zealous mowing; tree removal) and gardens (plastic grass; excessive paving), Kate introduces her own small urban garden in Portslade-by-Sea, near Brighton on the edge of the South Downs. The rest of the book covers her actions, interactions, experiences and thoughts over the period of April 2022 to June 2023 in 15 monthly chapters, each starting with an attractive wildlife drawing by Abby Cook, and ending with a short account of the natural history of a species found in her garden: ten insects such as the wool carder bee, the common backswimmer, and four others such as the slow-worm.

Each month she describes the work she does in the garden aimed at providing and protecting wildlife and enhancing biodiversity: bird feeders; seed sowing and seedling transplantation; hedgehog food and refuge provisioning; robin nest protection etc. She also covers the observations she makes and attempts to explain the sometimes puzzling behaviour of some species. She spends hours using her binoculars to follow the mating frenzies of frogs in her pond and the nest-building of a family of robins (when does she get any writing done?). There are also attempts to encourage others in her neighbourhood to look after wildlife, often via social media: a man repairing his roof is persuaded to provide swift boxes; a group campaigns against a man (‘drone bastard’) who is trying to dissuade gulls from nesting on his roof by flying a drone at them; others look out for hedgehogs that are struggling to find food in a drought.

Kate claims to be a reluctant protestor, only occasionally taking part in national climate change actions, but she certainly makes up through the practical local steps she takes that can make a difference. The main themes are climate change- constant worries over heat and drought effects on wildlife, especially hedgehogs, birds and insects. Indeed, in my view correctly, a big part of the book is on insect population and species declines and their cascading effects  on everything else. Her June 2023 chapter includes a howl of anguish at the attitudes she reports from friends, relatives and acquaintances over climate change, from denial to complacency (it’ll be good for us; our weather has always been variable; ‘they’ will find a solution).

The book’s subtitle is ‘in search of hope’: did she find it? I’ve been involved in environmental campaigning since the 1970s, and am finding it very hard to be hopeful: we seem to have to fight the same battles over and over, and are cursed with political leaders who refuse to take the environmental crises seriously. Kate’s approach, that individuals can make a difference, certainly has value, but we need structures that work with the natural environment, not against it. I would take issue with one of Kate’s sentences in her final chapter (which outlines actions people can take in their own gardens): she writes: ‘Climate change has not been caused by us but by big business, by oil giants, by capitalism’. There is an understandable tendency to think in terms of us (blameless) and them (the villains). But too many of us rush happily to buy the latest planet-damaging stuff and have the attitudes she clearly describes in her June chapter. We need to look at ourselves, and change our behaviour , because we are, collectively, to blame.

One Garden against the World- in search of hope in a changing climate by Kate Bradbury, Bloomsbury (2024); £18.99, hardback.

Croaking Science: who are the salamanders?

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Written by Elsbeth Leighton, Coalface to Wildspace Project Assistant

The salamanders, or Caudata, are one of the three classes of animals that make up the Amphibians, alongside the Gymnophiona; the worm-like caecilians, and the Anura; the frogs and toads. The salamanders are the second largest group, after the Anura, comprised of over 800 known species. These species are split into 9 main families, with diverse traits and life histories (1).

Gaps in the amphibian fossil record make determining the exact evolutionary relationships between groups challenging and debated. However, it is generally agreed that there are three more basal, i.e. more ancient, families and the rest are younger and form a suborder called the Salamandroidea, otherwise called the advanced salamanders (2). A key difference between the ancient families and the younger families is in their reproduction. The ancient families fertilise their eggs externally, and the younger families fertilise them internally (3).

Cryptobranchidae

The Cryptobranchidae, commonly called the Giant Salamanders, is one of the ancient families and has 6 known living species (1). They live fully aquatic lifestyles as paedomorphic adults, meaning that they keep key features into adulthood that are usually seen in larval states. These features include their gill slits and their lack of eyelids (4). These are considered basal traits, along with their feeding behaviour. They are suction feeders, whose specialised jaw anatomy enables them to grab prey from one side of their mouth at a time (5). Well-known examples from this family include the giant Japanese salamander and the giant Chinese salamander, which can both grow over 100cm (6).

Photo © Andy Murch

Hynobiidae

The Hynobiidae, or the Asian Salamanders, branched from the same common ancestor as the Cryptobranchidae (2). They have 100 known species, distributed across Asia and Russia (1). Unlike the Cryptobranchidae, these salamanders live biphasic life cycles, where they fully metamorphose from aquatic larvae into terrestrial or aquatic adults without gills (4).  

Sirenidae

The Sirenidae, or the Sirens, are unique ancient salamanders that lack back legs entirely and only have small front legs. They have long bodies and external gills, suited to their fully aquatic lifestyles (4). All seven known living species are found in the southeastern USA and northeastern Mexico (1). Interestingly, some siren species eat plants and are omnivorous, whereas all other salamanders are generally believed to be carnivorous (7).

Ambystomatidae

The Ambystomatidae are part of the advanced salamanders and consist of 30 living species (1). They are commonly called mole salamanders because many of these species live a fossorial lifestyle in underground terrestrial burrows, only emerging at nighttime to feed. This is not the case for all species in this family, however, as it also includes aquatic paedomorphic species, such as the famous axolotl (4). The 4 species of Dicamptodon or Pacific Giant Salamanders, are also grouped into this family, having previously been considered a separate group (1).

Photo by Kevin Stohlgren

Salamandridae

The Salamandridae, or the true salamanders and newts, includes our UK native newts and is a large group with 144 species (1). They are found across Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and America and are the only family where some species reproduce viviparously. This means that they give birth to live young as aquatic larvae or fully formed terrestrial young, instead of laying eggs (8). The newts are found in the subfamily Pleurodelinae and can have two (biphasic) or three (triphasic) stage life cycles (4). Triphasic life cycles are unique to the newt and are seen in species such as the Eastern Newt, which develops from aquatic larvae into terrestrial juveniles before returning to the water again as aquatic adults (9).

Proteidae

The Proteidae are a small group, with only 9 species (1). They have long bodies and small limbs, living fully aquatic life cycles as paedomorphs who keep their external gills into adulthood. They include the mudpuppies from North America as well as the Olm, a blind cave-dwelling salamander from Europe (4). The Olm is a unique species and is thought to be the longest-lived salamander with a potential lifespan of over 100 years (10). There has been some confusion around how Olms reproduce and if they give birth to live young, partially due to the challenges their habitat presents for study, but the current understanding is that they lay eggs (11).

Rhyacotritonidae

The Rhyacotritonidae or torrent salamanders are another small group with only 4 species (1). They live a biphasic lifestyle and are semi-aquatic as adults, adapted to live alongside the edge of fast-flowing waterbodies such as streams. To adapt to these environments, their larvae have developed smaller gills to suit the fast-flowing water (4). They live in the Northwestern USA and are strongly associated with intact humid forests,  as damage to this habitat limits their ability to disperse (12).

Amphiumidae

The Amphiumidae or amphiumas are fully aquatic paedomorphic salamanders with gill slits and absent eyelids as adults. They have very small limbs, but unlike the sirens who only have front limbs, they have all four limbs (4). There are 3 known species living today, all of which are restricted to the Southeastern USA (1).

Plethodontidae

The final family, the Plethodontidae is the biggest group with 520 known species (1). They are known as the lungless salamanders because they evolved to lose their lungs and instead breathe entirely through their skin and a patch at the back of their throat containing a special protein (13). They are a very diverse group, occurring in a range of habitats mostly within the Americas, but some species are also known from Southern Europe and Korea (1). They display very varied reproduction, but the most common and ancestral method is direct development, where the larval stage is skipped entirely to produce fully developed terrestrial young from eggs. However, some species have re-evolved the ability to have aquatic larvae and lead biphasic lifestyles or are paedomorphic (8, 14).

 

References

  1. Frost, D. R., 2024. Amphibian Species of the World: an online reference.  Version 6.2 (15.07.2024). Electronic Database accessible at https://amphibiansoftheworld.amnh.org/index.php. American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA. 
  2. Pyron, R. A., John J. Wiens, J. J., 2011. A large-scale phylogeny of Amphibia including over 2800 species, and a revised classification of extant frogs, salamanders, and caecilians, Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, Volume 61, Issue 2, Pages 543-583,ISSN 1055-7903, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2011.06.012.
  3. Vági, B., Marsh, D., Katona, G. et al. The evolution of parental care in salamanders. Scientific Reports. 12, 16655 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20903-3
  4. Information on amphibian biology and conservation. [web application]. 2024. Berkeley, California: AmphibiaWeb. Available: https://amphibiaweb.org/. (Accessed: 2024)
  5. Matsumoto, R., Fujiwara, S.-i.,and Evans, S.E., 2024. The anatomy and feeding mechanism of the Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus). Journal of Anatomy, 244, 679–707. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1111/joa.14004
  6. AmphibiaWeb 2022 Andrias davidianus: Chinese Giant Salamander <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/3858> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Jul 14, 2024
  7. Schwarz, D., Fedler, M. T., Lukas, P., Kupfer, A., 2021. Form and function of the feeding apparatus of sirenid salamanders (Caudata: Sirenidae): Three-dimensional chewing and herbivory?, Zoologischer Anzeiger, Volume 295, Pages 99-116, ISSN 0044-5231, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcz.2021.09.008.
  8. Bonett, R. M., Ledbetter, N. M., Hess, A. J., Herrboldt, M. A., Denoël, M. Repeated ecological and life cycle transitions make salamanders an ideal model for evolution and development. Developmental Dynamics. 251(6): 957 -972. https://doi.org/10.1002/dvdy.373
  9. Species Account Citation: AmphibiaWeb, 2011. Notophthalmus viridescens: Eastern Newt <https://amphibiaweb.org/species/4265> University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. Accessed Jul 14, 2024.
  10. Voituron, Y., de Fraipont, M., Issartel,, Guillaume, O.,and Clobert, J.,  2011. Extreme lifespan of the human fish (Proteus anguinus): a challenge for ageing mechanisms. Biol. Lett. 7. 105–107http://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2010.0539
  11. Recknagel, H., Premate, E., Zakšek, V., Aljančič, G., Kostanjšek, R., and Trontelj, P. 2022. Oviparity, viviparity or plasticity in reproductive mode of the olm Proteus anguinus: an epic misunderstanding caused by prey regurgitation?. Contributions to Zoology, 91(3), 153-165. https://doi.org/10.1163/18759866-bja10029
  12. Emel, S.L., Olson, D. H., Knowles, L. L. et al. Comparative landscape genetics of two endemic torrent salamander species, Rhyacotriton kezeriand R. variegatus: implications for forest management and species conservation. Conservation Genetics. 20, 801–815, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10592-019-01172-6
  13. Lewis, Z. R., Dorantes, J. A., and Hanken, J., 2018. Expression of a novel surfactant protein gene is associated with sites of extrapulmonary respiration in a lungless salamander. Proceedings of the Royal Society B. 28520181589 http://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1589
  14. Chippindale, P. T., Bonett, R. M., Baldwin, A. S., John J. Wiens, J. J., 2004. Phylogenetic evidence for a major reversal of life‐history evolution in plethodontid salamanders, Evolution, Volume 58, Issue 12, 1, Pages 2809–2822, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0014-3820.2004.tb01632.x

What our animals are doing this month

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Written by Eve Goddard, Transforming Lives Trainee

Gills in, venture out!

Credit: Gareth Ward

As August hits, our newt larvae, which have been aquatic until now, absorb their gills and head out onto land to begin the next stage of life as an eft or ‘newtlet’.

Their diet will change from chydorids, daphniids and cyclopoid copepods (that’s water fleas and tiny crustaceans to you and me!) to terrestrial invertebrates such as worms and slugs.

They will take shelter under warm, damp logs, stones and paving slabs.

The weather will play a big part in their success at this stage. If it has been too hot and seasonal ponds have dried early, larvae may not have developed enough to leave the ponds and will perish.

However, the annual drying of seasonal ponds provides an advantage for our newt friends long term, as whilst adults can remain on land, aquatic predators such as fish will be predated and ducks will move on. 

 

Hop into Summer!

August falls into the period when froglets and toadlets will absorb their tails and leave the pond for the first time to reach dry land. They will often leave en masse as there’s safety in numbers!

The young will be around 1cm long and will shelter around ponds and damp areas trying to keep cool in the summer heat.  Being largely nocturnal, they will be active at night and avoid daytime temperatures. They feed on small flies, insects and worms.

 

Reptile Egg-stravaganza!

August is the time when UK reptiles begin to be born. 

Grass snakes begin to hatch from their eggs. The eggs will have been laid in rotting vegetation where neonates (hatchlings) can keep warm before they are ready to explore. Neonates are adept swimmers and will feed on small fish and amphibians.

Common lizards incubate their eggs internally (known as ‘ovoviviparity’) and will now give birth to up to 11 young. The young can be predated by birds and domestic cats. Their secret defence is shedding their still-moving tail in the case of an attack.

Juvenile common lizards love the August sunshine and will be found in open dry, sunny spaces with dense cover nearby.

Credit: Josefine Stenudd

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