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Amphibians

Prolific traveler. The red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) has journied from it's native lands on the North American Gulf Coast and Florida's panhandle to colonize warm fresh waters around the world -- often at the expense of local crustaceans and amphibians. Credit, National Park Service.

Tadpoles bulk up to meet the alien invaders

What happens when an invasive, carapaced, and clawed, alien predator arrives in your pond? Do you change your daily habits to avoid drawing dangerous attention? Bulk up to make yourself a tougher target? If you an Iberian water frog, you do both.

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ESA Policy News: May 3

Here are some highlights from the latest ESA Policy News by Science Policy Analyst Terence Houston.  Read the full Policy News here. NSF: SCIENCE COMMITTEE LEADERS WEIGH IN ON BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH INVESTMENT A letter to National Science Foundation (NSF) Acting-Director Cora Marrett from House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) received a sharp rebuttal from Ranking Member Eddie…

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Tracking Pacific walrus, impacts of early-life stress, and plant traits matter more than origin

Monitoring Pacific Walrus: With the end of summer fast approaching, US Geological Survey (USGS) researchers are once again gearing up to radio-tag walruses on Alaska’s northwestern coast as part of the agency’s ongoing study of how the marine mammals are coping with declining sea ice. “Sea ice is an important component in the life cycle of walruses.  These tracking studies…

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Romania’s traditional approach to agriculture is linked to wildlife abundance

This post contributed by Molly Taylor, ESA Science Writing Intern. Something is afoot in Romania’s province of Transylvania, and it has nothing to do with Twilight. In a paper published recently in Biological Conservation, researchers from Romania, Germany and the Netherlands spent nine years studying populations of various species of newts, frogs and toads in 54 ponds in the Saxon…

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It takes more than climate change to cause amphibian decline

This post contributed by Monica Kanojia, Administrative Assistant/Governance for ESA. Amphibians have been around for hundreds of millions of years. They have survived numerous extinction events and yet somehow, in the past two decades, their numbers have been in severe decline. The population changes have been linked to many factors, including climate change and disease, habitat destruction and water pollution….

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Frog legs: more than just a culinary curiosity

Frog legs are a culinary tradition in many cultures—featured in French and Cantonese cuisine, among others—and have been showing up in American cuisine as well, often as a culinary curiosity. In a recent article in the Washington Post, for example, frog legs were presented as a delicacy that could become more popular with American consumers if presented in a new way.

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Scientists closely examine causes of frog abnormalities

urrently, research on the possible causes of limb deformities in amphibians is expansive, with evidence supporting parasite infection, chemical contaminants, UVB radiation and amputation as possible factors. However, as Mari Reeves from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and colleagues explained in an article in the August issue of Ecological Monographs, the most likely cause of amphibian abnormalities is a combination of several stressors.

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Climate change may reorganize Western fauna

Bioclimatic models attempt to draw correlations between species distributions and climate patterns.  As ecologists and climatologists hone these models, they become a useful tool for predicting future species distributions based on projected climate patterns. In the March issue of Ecology, Joshua Lawler of the University of Washington and his colleagues undertook a huge task: using a bioclimatic model, they estimated…

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