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Croaking Science: Protect our newts from chytrid!

May 29, 2015 by Admin

Following the news last month that the fatal skin-eating fungus ‘Bsal’ has been confirmed to have reached the UK this months Croaking Science feature outlines some actions that we can all be taking to help reduce the chance that it will infect our wild populations.

The recently discovered deadly species of chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans which translates as salamander skin-eating fungus threatens our native newt populations. The fungus has recently devastated fire salamander population in Netherlands and Belgium in as little as 2-3 years and unfortunately has already entered the UK through the pet trade via newt species imported from SE Asia. While some Asian newt species have evolved with this fungus and they may harbour it without obvious signs of infection, to most European salamanders, including our native great crested newt, the disease is fatal.

male gcn with smooth newt, Dave Kilbey with credit

The good news is B. salamandrivorans has not been detected in wild populations in the UK, however we must all be really vigilant to ensure this disease is contained and does not spread any further.

What can you do?

Whether you are volunteering on our sites, another site or just visiting a wetland, be vigilant in ensuring your footwear and any pond-dipping or surveying equipment is cleaned thoroughly between visits to different sites. Those of you performing pond survey can find out more about good biosecurity protocols here.

What NOT to do!

If you are an exotic amphibian enthusiast and you keep pet salamanders, please avoid handling wild newts that you may find in your garden as this could possibly introduce the disease into our wild populations. Make sure you do not use any equipment such as nets or tanks from your exotic amphibians in your garden and do not wash such equipment outdoors.

One of our staff was recently asked to move wild newts found in the garden of a volunteer and herp enthusiast who thought he was doing good when he uncovered some great crested newts in his garden by putting them a container of water until they could be transported onto the reserve. Such well-intentioned actions are illegal and risk carrying infection through to wild populations.

If you find newts in your garden

If you uncover newts in your garden when tidying don’t worry, leave them some shelter in the form of logs, overturned pots or vegetation and at night they will disperse when ready. You can register your sightings through the online Dragon Finder app.

Dead or diseased amphibians

If you find dead or diseased amphibians, you can register the sighting with the Garden Wildlife Health project and send a sample.

More information about Chytrid fungus can be found here:

http://www.froglife.org/what-we-do/disease-chytrid/

http://www.froglife.org/2014/02/12/croaking-science-cause-chytrid-catastrophe/

http://www.froglife.org/2014/05/14/lethal-chytridiomycosis-salamandars/

Inspired by Nature – A Newt Went Down to the Pond One Night to Dance the Night Away

April 29, 2015 by Admin

^{Inspired by Nature is a themed Croak to entertain you with some of our favourite artwork based on nature and the outdoors. We hope it will stimulate you to get creative and produce something yourself. If you do and would like to share them with us, please post them on our Facebook page, Twitter account, or email us at info@froglife.org}

^{This months feature has been written by Rebecca Neal our Conservation Youth Worker on the Peterborough Green Pathways project.}

It all started with a discussion with a friend of mine who has a two year old son, on the lack of books for children about native wildlife. There are any number of stories about crocodiles and elephants and tigers and lots on farm animals but very few to actually inspire children about our own wildlife. I was reminded how much I loved Captain Beaky as a child and was amazed that my friend had not heard the song (we remedied this quite quickly). What we decided was that with my enthusiasm for creative writing, I should write one myself. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea, and mentioning it to Froglife staff, who are always receptive to new ways to engage people, the idea blossomed. We thought that if we made it a story with a message, we could “publish” it in a pamphlet that could be handed out at events or read on school sessions. We are lucky within the Froglife team to have an amazing illustrator who was keen to put pictures to my words and so I got excited and patted myself on the back for thinking of such a cool idea and then got on with writing my end of year report. February came around and my colleague said “eer, how are you getting on with your children’s story?” “I, um, yes, um… the creative process is very hard you know. I would be happy for someone else to try it. Um, I had not forgotten at all. No.”

So out of embarrassment, I got on with it.

I managed 11 stanzas which filled our self-imposed criteria of: rhyming, having an alternative central character who goes on a journey, including particular native species linked to the Peterborough Wildlife Festival Froglife are involved in, and with potential links to the science curriculum for primary schools and a conservation message. Now we are at the stage where we are going to test the story on some actual mini-critics. Over the next few weeks, the Green Pathways team will be taking the story to primary schools in Peterborough and reading it to some children. Depending on their reaction, we might scrap the whole idea as a bad job or proceed to “publication”.

Here is all I dare share with you until it has been judged and refined.

A newt went down to the pond one night to dance the night away,

His tail was striped, his crest was spiked, gold toe-rings bright as day.

He’d been asleep all winter long, curled underground he lay,

But now the warmth had woken him he wanted friends to play.

His local pond was not that far but didn’t smell quite right,

The dragonfly snoozing in the reeds said by day it was a sight.

They chatted, and the insect said he’d take him for a flight,

They made a thing from rubbish; a four-winged kite.

Froglife would love to hear your favourite children’s stories containing native wildlife and I suppose you can comment on the first part of the story above, but only if you’re nice! If you’re feeling creative you could even share a story you have written. Leave a comment on our facebook page or tweet us @froglifers

Croaking Science: Evolution and revolution of biological recording and why that matters

April 29, 2015 by Admin

The fast development and the rapid drop in costs of electronic equipment and information technology has transformed almost every aspect of human life in the past decades, including our way of interacting with the natural world and the measuring and recording of biological data. Although in existence for some time, only recently powerful smartphones have become almost ubiquitous in much of the world and with the help of software applications they can now undertake complex functions that only 5-10 years ago required several separate instruments including a handheld GPS, a digital camera, a specialised field guide, an auditory deposit with calls of birds or frogs and a computer. Not only is this advance generating a huge wealth of records but it also means that biological recording is made a lot more accessible as members of the public can get immediate access to identification guides, connect with other users, including experts, allowing them to recognise and record a large variety of species, sometimes without any prior biological or taxonomical training. Consequently, there has been a huge increase in developments in this field and many taxonomical groups in the western world, from birds to dragonflies and snakes to bumblebees, now benefit from simple smartphone applications for identification and recording of observations, including calls and tracks, facilitating the development of ecological datasets at a scale never seen before.

However, there are also other technological developments, such as the use of eDNA, LiDAR remote sensing technology and drones, which combined with ever-increasing computing power and availability of complex satellite imagery have the potential to completely transform biological recording including for amphibians and reptiles in temperate parts of the world such as the UK. Surveys at regional or landscape scales that would have required complex map checking, site visits and specialised ecological surveys are currently possible using free satellite image data available on a smartphone and provided that access is agreed, simple surveys to collect small quantities of water from ponds that can then be all shipped for eDNA analysis, basically looking for traces of DNA left in the water by specific species such as great crested newts. Most of the process can become automated and in theory it could even be conducted with the use of a drone to visit the ponds and collect the eDNA samples!

In this context a new review looking at the technological developments and the implications for biological recording is extremely suitable and August et al. 2015 do just that. They describe the recent advances in terms of data collection using smartphone apps, data verification, automation and management systems, storage aspects and information dissemination as well as the future of biological recording. An excellent opportunity to review in a structured format the implications of technological advancements. Froglife is currently working on the new version of its Dragon Finder app but also at various other ways to “democratise science”, improve recording and data collection for our species.

References:

August, T., Harvey, M., Lightfoot, P., Kilbey, D., Papadopoulos, T. and Jepson, P. (2015), Emerging technologies for biological recording. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. doi: 10.1111/bij.12534

Froglife’s Dragon Finder App

Croaking Science: Amphibian diseases falling from the sky? New research says maybe

March 31, 2015 by Admin

P.dasypus2

A central role in the recent catastrophic decline of amphibians is occupied by diseases, with one in particular – the chytrid fungus Batrachochytridium dendrobatidis – responsible for the largest disease driven species extinction event ever known to man. This fungus was described for the first time only in 1999 and since then hundreds of publications have detailed its mechanisms for infection in amphibians, the impact on different populations and species as well as numerous experiments designed to treat the infection in captivity or to stop it from spreading. As a result, we currently know a great deal about this pathogen although we are still unable to remove it from the environment or to efficiently treat it in the wild, making the future prospects of countless amphibian species extremely precarious. Several species, in particular habitat specialist species in high altitude Central America, a global biodiversity hotspot, are now so threatened that their survival might be completely dependent on captive breeding programs. However, as the fungus can’t be successfully removed from the environment and there is no vaccine or long term protection, it is unclear how any captive bread individuals could be released back in the wild. In addition, fighting this disease is complicated by the fact that not all species are affected and the fungus seems to be endemic in some countries but introduced and invasive in others, greatly facilitated by the global amphibian trade in spreading across all continents except Antarctica.

Interestingly, the chytrid is neither very resistant (it is vulnerable to desiccation and to temperatures above 29C) nor particularly good at active dispersal, yet, it can rapidly contaminate very large regions and moves very quickly between areas, including those without amphibians and with high enough temperatures to kill the fungus. This is even more surprising considering that direct transmission, animal to animal, is potentially the most important pathway of infection. Understanding more widely the mechanisms for the spread of the fungus and for infection could provide a much needed help for fighting this disease.

In a recent study Kolby et al. investigate rainfall events during tropical storms in Cusuco National Park in Honduras as a potential source of contamination with the fungus, away from contiguous bodies of water. They used single use large plastic sheets (16 square meters) in 5 areas with large openings in the forest canopy during 2011 and 2012 and additionally collected water from nearby rivers where high contamination of amphibians such as the critically endangered Plectrohyla dasypus (See image) had been detected. Very worryingly, the chytrid was detected in 3 of the 5 studied rivers but also in one of the rainfall samples, some 600m away from the nearest river, suggesting for the first time that aerial dispersal is possible for this pathogen. Even if the fungus spores were swept by wind from surrounding trees it still required aerial transportation over at least 50m. The implication is that the fungus could be moved rapidly between differ types of habitats and could potentially infect amphibian species in a terrestrial environment, away from the typical source of contamination which is rivers, pools of water and aquatic species. Cusuco National Park is an area of remarkable importance for amphibians and reptiles, with over 100 species recorded there and several single site endemics present. Hopefully more research such as this study can help us to understand how to protect these species before they are lost forever.

References:
Kolby et al. 2015 Presence of amphibian chytrid fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) in rainwater suggests aerial dispersal is possible. Aerobiologia DOI 10.1007/s10453-015-9374-6
Read more about the chytrid here: www.amphibianark.org/the-crisis/chytrid-fungus/

From the East of England to South Lanarkshire Froglife boosted by Biffa Award

February 27, 2015 by Admin

biffa award logo Conservation plans have spawned an extensive work programme to create and restore ponds across South Lanarkshire and the East of England. In total 45 ponds will be created and restored, 33 in South Lanarkshire and 12 in the East of England.

Our South Lanarkshire Living Water and River Nene Dragon Finder projects have been given a massive boost by Biffa Award with grants totaling £96,178.

Our CEO, Kathy Wormald, said “There has been a steady decline in ponds and this negatively impacts on our local amphibian and reptile species and other pond life. Building work across the UK, has destroyed habitats. Our projects are addressing this issue by helping to create new habitats and to improve existing ones”

The South Lanarkshire Living Water project is part of an ongoing scheme of habitat creation and restoration that is taking place across Scotland, and the River Nene Dragon Finder project is working all along the River Nene from its source in Northamptonshire to where it meets the sea at the Washes. In total the River Nene Dragon Finder project will be working on 160 sites of which 12 are entirely funded by Biffa Award.

The projects will also train local groups of volunteers associated with each site providing communities with opportunities to get involved in their local green space.

Gillian French, Programme Manager, Biffa Award, said “Biffa Award is keen to support projects which improve access to the countryside and encourage us to learn more about our natural environment. This project does both and the training of the volunteers will mean that more people will be able to enjoy the ponds and surrounding habitats.”

Ponds are crucial for amphibians such as frogs, toads and newts, as well as reptiles and a broad range of other species. These vital habitats are at risk of disappearing from areas all over the UK, both through deliberate changes to the landscape, and through mismanagement and neglect. Our projects aim to tackle this through on the ground action and volunteer support.

The work will start this spring/summer, with new ponds appearing in time for the amphibian breeding season next spring.

The Nene Dragon Finder launch event poem

February 26, 2015 by Admin

Our Conservation Youth Worker Trainee wrote this poem about the River Nene Dragon Finder launch event:

Town Hall venue, impressive ceiling;

Everyone’s coming to the big revealing!

Get ready the banners, badges, projectors;

James and Nathan are the project’s directors.

Guests arriving! Greetings, drinks;

It’s starting! ‘Seats please!’ Latecomers sneak in!

Tales of dragons, adventure, and hedgehogs?!

Frogs, toads and newts of course are mentioned.

Now time for food, talking, meeting;

Even chat to the Mayor whilst we are eating!

‘A successful launch!’ ‘A joyful scene!’

‘Can’t wait to find dragons in the Nene!’

By Catherine Duerden

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