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Work Experience Blog – Nathaniel

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Week 1

Monday 10th July

I did research on all kinds of pond life and allotment related subjects which I then used to create a sign on why ponds are helpful in an allotment. These signs will be placed in the allotment so other users will consider making a pond in their plot. I also  then went on to do, in the afternoon, some research on interesting facts about frogs, toads, lizards, snakes and newts that will be used on social media as “Did You Know?” facts. 

Tuesday 11th July 

I started out this day helping out with some indoor decorating. I helped to paint a wall with Stuart by painting another coat of blackboard paint and I helped to strip down the sealant which was poorly put in by the previous worker. Then I went out to B&Q to help buy a new sealant that will be used in the future. Later on in the day I went out with Gail to the Froglife allotment where Gail does a scheme of helping vulnerable and disadvantaged children by letting them interact with the environment. We made willow spirals, painted flowerpot men, cut poles for bee houses and did some watering of the plants. The children looked like they benefited greatly from this scheme and they all looked like they had fun. Gail then dropped by for a 1 to 1 meeting on the way back to the Froglife headquarters. 

Wednesday 12th July

I spent all of today in the office. I corrected books by sticking over the address, as these books were published in 2011, and then I helped Marie shred some documents. In the afternoon I made a word search and a crossword for a new magazine by Froglife all about reptiles. I also made a dot to dot using publisher.

Thursday 13th July

I spent the morning out at the Nature Reserve doing a Reptile Survey. I saw lots of reptiles like Adders, Grass Snakes, slow worms and Lizards.  One of the Adders, which was gravid (pregnant), lifted its head at us and hissed. We also encountered an Emperor Dragonfly on our travels.  In the afternoon I put together a toad colouring book and cut out toad masks.

 Friday 14th July

This morning I used my time to finish off some of the toad masks. I also spell checked the Froglife website, helped around the office and went out to check up on ponds. We went to Nene Park where we found that most of the ponds had dried up because there was not enough rain. Also in Ferry Meadows one of the waterbodies had become full of blue-green algae.  

Week 2

Monday 17th July

This morning we went to Castor to clear a pond out from willow and other vegetation which was over growing. We did this for most of the day. Later on in the day we went to the Nature Reserve to have a look around. We saw lots of adders and other things: 

 

Tuesday 18th July

All day I was helping out with a huge pond. We made it a bit bigger and we cleaned it out so it would be free from stones and mud, this was so we could start placing felt. We then covered the felt in pond liner to keep the water in. We added another layer of felt. We then put soil back in to the pond along with water.     

Wednesday 19th July

Today I went to Boardwalks and The Green Backyard. At Boardwalks we made a Geocache for a party that will take place there, we also did a butterfly survey during which we saw many butterflies such as Gatekeepers and even a red admiral. There was also a pack of 10 cygnets and a baby frog and 2 kingfishers. After we finished up at Boardwalks we went to The Green Backyard. In The Green Backyard we did a spot of pond dipping. I found a baby newt, some dragonfly nymphs and many more creatures.

Thursday 20th July

Today was my last day. I made a box in the morning a and I made an instruction manual for the GPS Device that will be used for geocaching. I also made clues for the Geocache trail, they included pictures of the areas. Then I uploaded this blog onto the website along with a In the Spotlight article for the Dragon Finder Newsletter. 

Froglife’s London Tails of Amphibian Discovery (T.O.A.D) project secures National Lottery investment

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Froglife, a wildlife conservation charity has received a confirmed grant of £38,800, made possible by National Lottery players, to develop its London T.O.A.D project, it was announced today. The grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) will enable Froglife to undertake a six month development phase. During these six months Froglife will be planning an extensive range of activities to benefit the UK’s beleaguered common toads.

In 2016 Froglife worked in partnership with the University of Zurich to analyse its 30+ year Toads on Roads database. The findings from this research concluded that the UK’s common toads have declined by 68% over the 30 year period. It is known that year-on-year mortality of toads crossing roads to reach their breeding sites does eventually lead to the extinction of the population. Froglife coordinates the toads on roads patrols, these are volunteers who go out on spring evenings and help toads across busy roads. The dedication from these volunteers is of enormous help to our toad populations. However, in cities such as London, where the volume of traffic is such that it is not feasible to patrol roads, alternative systems are essential.

Being a very pro-active organisation Froglife immediately put in place an action plan to help secure the future of our common toads. This London project forms part of the action plan. The project will be working on six large wildlife sites in London creating networks of habitats suitable for toads. It will also be visiting toad patrol sites to select sites to benefit from infrastructure such as wildlife tunnels. Froglife is currently monitoring numerous wildlife tunnels of different designs using 24 hour cameras, the early results are showing that wildlife tunnels are well-used and not only by the wildlife that they are designed for.

Froglife wants as many people as possible to get involved in its work and in order to encourage wide engagement in toad conservation Froglife will be delivering activities such as the creation of a Mapestry (tapestry reflecting the heritage items of London), T.O.A.D wildlife gardening workshops, T.O.A.D. Tails – an activity delivered in schools, Swimming with T.O.A.Ds – converting swimming pools into toad ponds and T.O.A.D. Shows, where a Froglife Pond Doctor will provide households with wildlife gardening tips.

Kathy Wormald, Froglife CEO, said: “We are very grateful to Heritage Lottery Fund for this grant. It will provide Froglife with an excellent opportunity to inspire local communities in London about their common toad populations and their intriguing lives, whilst also introducing people to the many local green spaces on our doorsteps that can be enjoyed by all. We’ll be hosting some exceptionally creative activities alongside much needed habitat creation and restoration work.”

Stuart Hobley, Head of HLF London, said: “Whilst the age-old question might concern chickens, we are delighted that National Lottery players are able to support Froglife in helping London’s toads cross the road. This project has the potential to celebrate the humble toad, their habitats, and the important role they play in our environment. The project will also allow volunteers a toad-ally exciting opportunity to learn and develop new skills. We look forward to seeing the final proposals in due course”.

Telling Toads

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common toad

A new initiative celebrating amphibians through poems and stories

 An invitation and a challenge: can you write a poem, or a short story, or recount a personal experience that will help share the wonder of Toads and Frogs? Creeping Toad is looking for these new bits of work. As part of Froglife’s Year of the Toad * (links listed below), Gordon MacLellan from Creeping Toad is assembling a collection of amphibian celebrations to share excitement, wonder and hope about these small, often overlooked, often dismissed and often delightful animals.

Slimy? Sometimes! Wriggly? Often. Hoppy, jumpy, entertaining: always. From pond-chorus to determined predators, from potent enchantments to vital ecological agents, amphibians have hopped down the centuries beside us.

Now, they are imperilled. Species across the planet are disappearing or suffering drastic population declines and while all sorts of conservation work is ongoing, this project sets out to reach for hearts and spirits and to become a resource that will remind people of wonder and to delight in unexpected marvels. Among all the worry and fear, this is project sets out to remind us of joy.

Link: http://www.froglife.org/2016/10/06/goodbye-mr-toad/

Creeping Toad is looking for original pieces of writing (no more than 500 words) to gather into a resource for others to share: stories to tell, poems to recite, accounts to be absorbed by. This isn’t a competition. There are no prizes. There is no money. There is only the prospect of sharing a little joy. Work will be posted on the Creeping Toad blog, assembled eventually into a pdf. Selected pieces will also feature on the Froglife website. The project is evolving like a tadpole growing legs so new features will unfold as the seasons turn.

Please jump in. the water is lovely

Deadlines: this project will have a rolling programme, aiming to publish new Toadwords at the end of each month until June 2018 when we will review what we’ve got and decide what to do next

 

For more information and submission details, look at:

Creeping Toad: website:www.creepingtoad.com

Blog: www.creepingtoad.blogspot.co.uk

Facebook page: Telling Toads, https://www.facebook.com/tellingtoads/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

Email for Telling Toads submissions: toadwords@btinternet.com

New ‘Tree Charter’ to protect people’s rights to the benefits of trees and woods

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More than 70 organisations with a combined membership of 20 million people launch 10 principles to bring trees and woods to the centre of UK society

Monday 27th March saw the launch of 10 guiding principles for the future of trees, woods and people, drawn from more than 50,000 stories submitted by members of the public. The principles reveal the role of trees in our lives, and are agreed by a coalition of more than 70 cross-sector UK organisations. These organisations are now united in calling for people across the UK to stand up for trees by signing the Tree Charter and helping to shape history.

charter_sign

The principles will form the bedrock of the new ‘Charter for Trees, Woods and People’ to be launched in November 2017, which aims to secure a brighter future for the nation’s woods and trees, and to protect the rights of all people in the UK to access the many benefits they offer.

The creation of the Tree Charter is supported by a raft of famous names including:  Clive Anderson, Benjamin Zephaniah, John Humphrys, Chris Packham, Kevin McCloud, Gemma Cairney and Carenza Lewis, who have all helped to create animations to support the project principles.

At a time when England may have tipped into deforestation, with more trees being cut down than planted for the first time in 40 years, it is essential we act now as a nation to protect the future of trees and woods for people for generations to come.

From community woods across the UK, street trees in our cities, timber in our houses, to many ancient trees and woods with historical and cultural connections such as the Tolpuddle Martyrs tree2 – which saw the birth of trade unions – or Sherwood Forest linked to much folklore and history, trees and woods play an important part in our lives3, but more woods are under threat than ever before4.

Beccy Speight , Woodland Trust CEO said: “Today, our nation’s woods and trees are facing unprecedented pressures from development, pests and diseases and climate change. They risk being neglected, undervalued and forgotten.  Now is the time to create a new Tree Charter, which recognises the importance of trees in our society, celebrates their enormous contribution to our lives, and acts now so that future generations can benefit from them too.

“Our collective ambition is for a Tree Charter that puts trees back at the heart of our lives, communities and decision making – where they belong. The Tree Charter will provide guidance and inspiration to allow us all to appreciate, preserve and celebrate our trees and woods for what they do for us in so many different ways.”

Whereas the historic charter was signed by the King to grant rights to his subjects, the new Tree Charter will draw its strength from people power, with signatures from hundreds of thousands of people from across the UK.

Principle Theme                                               Principle Aim

  1. Nature Thriving habitats for diverse species
  2. Planting Planting for the future                                                                  
  3. Arts & Heritage Celebrating the cultural impacts of trees
  4. Utility & Livelihoods A thriving forestry sector that delivers for the UK
  5. Protection Better protection for important trees and woods
  6. Planning Enhancing new developments with trees
  7. Health & Wellbeing Understanding and using the natural health benefits of trees
  8. People & Access to trees Access to trees for everyone
  9. Coping with Threats Addressing threats  to woods and trees through good management
  10. Environment Strengthening landscapes with woods and trees

The Tree Charter Principles articulate the relationship between people and trees in the UK in the 21st Century. The final Charter will provide guidance and inspiration for policy, practice, innovation and enjoyment, redefining the everyday benefits that we all gain from woods and trees in our lives, for everyone, from Government to businesses, communities and individuals.

People can find out more and sign the new Charter at: treecharter.uk/sign

plant_tree

Croaking Science: Courtship & Reproductive Behaviour in Newts and Salamanders

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Courtship and reproductive behaviour in newts and salamanders

Courtship behaviour in newts and salamanders is very different to that of frogs and toads (anurans). In anurans, fertilisation is external so the male expels his sperm whilst the female lays her eggs. However, in newts and salamanders, fertilisation is internal. The male deposits a sperm package, the spermatophore, and the female uptakes this into her reproductive tract to fertilize her eggs. Male newts and salamanders have evolved a range of complex behaviours to encourage the female to uptake the spermatophore. This may involve contact between the male and female, but in aquatic newts of the family Salamandridae, there is no contact and the male encourages the female through complex courtship displays.

male showing belly Matt Wilson spring11
Great Crested Newt ©Matt Wilson

Newts in the genera Triturus (e.g. great crested newt) and Lissotriton (e.g. smooth newt), have similar courtship displays. During an initial orientation phase, the male will move in front of a female and attempt to gain her attention. The female may show no interest and swim away. If successful, the male moves into a static display which involves intense tail fanning and wafting pheromones towards the female. Once the female is fully engaged the male will start to retreat backwards facing the female, still tail fanning. He will then turn around, creeping away from the female with his tail quivering and her following. The male will pause, deposit his spermatophore onto the substrate, walk one body length forward and stop, turning 90 degrees. This allows the female to move so that her cloaca is directly over the spermatophore. She now uptakes the spermatophore for successful fertilisation. Unfortunately, spermatophore uptake by the female will not always be successful so the male has to perform the courtship display from the beginning.

Although males will develop secondary sexual characters during the spring (e.g. tail crest, webbing on the feet), the courtship display takes place in underwater in darkness, so visual cues are likely to be irrelevant. Recent research has shown that the courtship pheromones produced by the male are crucial in ensuring mating success. When a male employs tail fanning, he sends sex-specific pheromones towards the female and these directly impact her responses. In the laboratory, female palmate newts (Lissotriton helveticus) exhibit all the sexual responses up until spermatophore uptake, when in the presence of male pheromones, but no male present. This demonstrates the importance of pheromone production and effective transfer to the female during mating. Previous research has demonstrated that male newts which perform their displays more energetically, have higher mating success. In addition, in male smooth newts (L. vulgaris), males with higher body mass and crest height achieve higher mating success, possibly due to enhanced pheromone production and more effective transfer to the female. This research demonstrates the importance of effective transfer of pheromones by the male towards the female for reproduction.

Smooth newt ©Mike Toms

Male pheromones may have additional effects on females. In the aquatic Spanish ribbed newt (Pleurodeles waltlm), which has both contact and non-contact displays, the male has special glands in the cloaca. When these are released they induce the female’s cloaca to expand and uptake the spermatophore. It has previously been thought that the female doesn’t have a choice over whether she receives the spermatophore from a particular male, once he has clasped her and released his pheromones. However, recent research has demonstrated that females of this species may exhibit thanatosis (feigning death) during courtship prior to the crucial moment of pheromone production by the male. This avoids spermatophore uptake by the female and therefore may provide an escape strategy by a female, should she not want to be persuaded by the male to mate. Thanatosis has previously only been known as an escape strategy by amphibians and has not been observed in a sexual context.

Male newts and salamanders exhibit a range of complex sexual displays. Although many of the behaviours exhibited are widely understood, there are still areas where we have less understanding, such as the effects of pheromones, importance of secondary sexual characters and female choice in mate selection.

 

References

Halliday, T. R. (1974) Sexual behaviour of the smooth newt, Triturus vulgaris (Urodela, Salamandridae). Journal of Herpetology, 8 (4): 277-292.

Green, A. J. (1991) Large male crests – an honest indicator of condition, are preferred by smooth newts, Triturus vulgaris (Salamandridae) at the spermatophore transfer stage. Animal Behaviour, 41 (2): 367-369.

Janssenswillen, S. & Bossuyt, F. (2016) Male courtship pheromones induce cloacal gaping in female newts (Salamandridae). Plos One: DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0144985.

Teyssedre, C. & Halliday, T. (1986) Cumulative effects of male’s displays in the sexual behaviour of the smooth newt, Triturus vulgaris vulgaris (Urodela, Salamandridae). Ethology, 71: 89-102.

Treer, D., Bocxlaer, I.V., Matthijs, S., Four, D. D., Janssenswillen, S., Willaert, B. & Bossuyt, F. (2013) Love is blind: indiscriminate female mating responses to male courtship pheromones in newts (Salamandridae). Plos One, 8 (2): e56538.

Are amphibian road tunnels putting protected species at risk from pollution?

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Researchers from Froglife and the University of Hull are investigating how endangered and protected amphibians use man-made tunnels to cross roads and also, if such tunnels suffer from chemical pollution from the road traffic above them. A new study, published today in the Water and Environment journal indicates that such road tunnels, while extensively used by amphibians, including the protected great crested newt (Triturus cristatus), can indeed accumulate multiple potentially harmful substances including metals, salt and petroleum hydrocarbons. This is the first published research linking road pollution to amphibian tunnels for the great crested newt.

GCN in amphibian tunnel

Amphibians need water to breed and in a heavily urbanised country such as the UK, the long distances they have to cross between their terrestrial grounds and breeding ponds are often crossed by roads. Roads are not just deadly obstacle courses for amphibians, killing millions each year but also have more insidious effects such as creating barriers for movement, effectively preventing animals from breeding and isolating them in smaller and smaller fragments of habitats. This means that in many parts of the world, amphibian populations have become increasingly fragmented, rare and isolated. Installing amphibian tunnels under roads can be a really positive and important step in order to reduce mortality and encourage connectivity. However, roads are known to be important sources of chemical pollution and amphibians are more susceptible than most animals due to their permeable skin which means dangerous substances can enter the body through direct contact.

Amphibian road tunnel. S. Petrovan

The team of scientists investigated a site with four amphibian tunnels and collected numerous soil and water samples over multiple seasons and compared them to a nearby reference site, away from roads. To their surprise, the amphibian tunnels showed substantial pollution, ranging from high concentrations of metals such as copper and zinc and extreme pH values, much higher than those found in natural habitats. While the presence of chemical pollutants was not unexpected the high levels found came as a shock, especially as the road was very recently built and was less than 3 years old. Metals can accumulate on road surfaces due to car braking and other wear and tear on vehicles, while the high pH may be related to leaching from materials used in road and tunnel construction. Equally, salt concentrations were strongly seasonal, meaning winter applications of road grit were likely responsible. However, other pollutants were more difficult to pinpoint to the source, especially the hydrocarbons. Their impact on amphibians and other species is largely unknown currently, but several pollutants were at concentrations that suggested they could be harmful for the aquatic environment.

Dr Will Mayes from the University of Hull and who led the study said: “This is an interesting initial finding to demonstrate that there is a potential pathway which means amphibians could be exposed to road pollutants in tunnels.  Understanding the risks associated with these pollutants can hopefully inform management guidance to minimise any potentially negative side-effects of amphibian tunnels, which play a key role in mitigating against the impacts of urban developments on amphibian communities.”

Dr Silviu Petrovan, a trustee from wildlife charity Froglife and who participated in the study said: “This is the first study that shows that small amphibian tunnels can accumulate potentially significant pollutants from the road surface. We currently do not know how these interact with amphibians and other species that use the same areas, such as voles, reptiles, hedgehogs and even otters. We need a better understanding of the spread of such road pollutants but also, there are simple measures that can be put in place in amphibian tunnels, especially washing them with a high-pressure water hose at the end of winter, in late February. This is carried out regularly in countries on the continent such as Germany, principally to remove leaf litter that could block amphibian movement but also to remove salt. It is extremely cheap and simple to do.”

 

Citation:

White K, Mayes W, Petrovan S (2017) Identifying pathways of exposure to highway pollutants in great crested newt (Triturus cristatus) road mitigation tunnels. Water and Environment Journal DOI:10.1111/wej.12244

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