{"id":3754,"date":"2019-05-16T17:16:39","date_gmt":"2019-05-16T17:16:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/?p=3754"},"modified":"2019-05-16T17:16:39","modified_gmt":"2019-05-16T17:16:39","slug":"dice-conservationists-discover-hidden-diversity-in-ancient-frog-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/2019\/05\/16\/dice-conservationists-discover-hidden-diversity-in-ancient-frog-family\/","title":{"rendered":"DICE conservationists discover hidden diversity in ancient frog family"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research scientists led by Dr Jim Labisko<\/a> have uncovered hidden diversity within a type of frog found only in the Seychelles, showing that those on each island have their own distinct lineage.<\/p>\n

The family tree of\u00a0sooglossid frogs dates back at least 63 million years. They are living ancestors of those frogs that\u00a0survived the meteor strike on earth approximately 66 million years ago, and their most recent common ancestor dates back some 63 million years, making them a\u00a0highly evolutionarily distinct\u00a0group. There are\u00a0just four species\u00a0of sooglossid frog: the Seychelles frog (Sooglossus sechellensis<\/em>), Thomasset\u2019s rock frog (So. thomasseti<\/em>), Gardiner\u2019s Seychelles frog (Sechellophryne gardineri<\/em>) and the Seychelles palm frog (Se. pipilodryas<\/em>).<\/p>\n

However, recent work on their genetics\u00a0revealed that each island lineage needs to be considered as a\u00a0potential new species. Of the currently recognised sooglossid species, two (So. thomasseti<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Se. pipilodryas<\/em>) have been assessed as\u00a0Critically Endangered, and two (So. sechellensis<\/em>and\u00a0Se. gardineri<\/em>) as Endangered for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List<\/a>. All four species are in the\u00a0top 50\u00a0of the Zoological Society of London’s<\/a> (ZSL) Evolutionarily Distinct Globally Endangered\u00a0(EDGE) amphibians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Given the Red List and EDGE status of these\u00a0unique frogs,\u00a0Dr Labisko and his colleagues are carrying out\u00a0intensive monitoring\u00a0as part of a long-term project to assess and monitor the\u00a0level of risk from both climate change and disease to the endemic amphibians\u00a0of the Seychelles. The project is supported by the\u00a0Mohammed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund<\/a>\u00a0and working with partners including\u00a0Island Conservation Society<\/a>,\u00a0Seychelles Islands Foundation<\/a>, and\u00a0Seychelles National Parks Authority<\/a>. It, and the work on the evolutionary relationships of sooglossid frogs, also forms part of Dr Labisko\u2019s teaching in\u00a0the School of Anthropology and Conservation for both\u00a0BSc<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0PG<\/a>\u00a0students.<\/p>\n

Dr Labisko, who completed his PhD on sooglossid frogs at Kent\u2019s\u00a0Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology<\/a>\u00a0(DICE) in 2016 said many of these frogs are\u00a0so small and good at hiding\u00a0that the only way to observe them is by listening for their calls. Although tiny, the sound they emit can be\u00a0around 100 decibels, equivalent to the sound volume of a power lawnmower. Dr Labisko\u2019s team are using sound monitors to record the vocal activity of sooglossid frogs for\u00a0five minutes every hour, every day of the year, in combination with dataloggers that are sampling temperature and moisture conditions on an hourly basis<\/p>\n

Dr Labisko said, “Amphibians play\u00a0a vital role in the ecosystem\u00a0as predators, munching on invertebrates like mites and mosquitos, so they contribute to\u00a0keeping diseases like malaria and dengue in check. Losing them will have\u00a0serious implications for human health.”<\/p>\n

As a result of this study into the frogs, the research team will also contribute to\u00a0regional investigations into climate change, making a local impact in the Seychelles.<\/p>\n

Amphibians around the world are threatened by a\u00a0lethal fungus known as chytrid. The monitoring of sooglossid frogs will provide\u00a0crucial data on amphibian\u00a0behaviour in relation to climate and disease. If frogs are suddenly not heard in an area where they were previously, this could indicate a range-shift in response to warming temperatures, or the arrival of disease such as chytrid \u2013 the Seychelles is one of\u00a0only two global regions of amphibian diversity where the disease is yet to be detected.<\/p>\n

It may also impact on a variety of other endemic Seychelles flora and fauna, including the caecilians, a\u00a0legless burrowing amphibian that is even more difficult to study than the elusive sooglossids. Researchers know that caecilians can be found in similar habitats to the frogs, so they can\u00a0use the frog activity and environmental data they are collecting to infer caecilian presence or absence\u00a0and generate appropriate conservation strategies as a result.<\/p>\n

Global caecilian experts from the\u00a0Natural History Museum<\/a>, London, and the\u00a0University of Wolverhampton<\/a>, as well as local expertise from Seychelles Natural History Museum and the Island Biodiversity and Conservation centre of the\u00a0University of Seychelles,\u00a0<\/a>are also involved in the project, and\u00a0helping to design strategies\u00a0to monitor both frogs and caecilians in Seychelles.<\/p>\n

The work of Dr Labisko is part of a suite of\u00a0research and conservation activities\u00a0by DICE on Seychelles endemics that includes work on the\u00a0Seychelles paradise flycatcher<\/a>, and Seychelles black parrot, and stems from the Darwin Initiative Project\u00a0\u2018A cutting-EDGE approach to saving Seychelles\u2019 evolutionarily distinct biodiversity\u2019<\/a>\u00a0that ran from 2012-2015, headed by\u00a0Professor Jim Groombridge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘Endemic, endangered and evolutionarily significant: cryptic lineages in Seychelles\u2019 frogs (Anura: Sooglossidae)<\/a>‘\u00a0by Jim Labisko, Richard A Griffiths, Lindsay Chong-Seng, Nancy Bunbury, Simon T Maddock, Kay S Bradfield, Michelle L Taylor and Jim J Groombridge is published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research scientists led by Dr Jim Labisko have uncovered hidden diversity within a type of frog found only in the Seychelles, showing that those on … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40284,"featured_media":3755,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[159353,6599,124,70,6600],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40284"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3754"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3756,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3754\/revisions\/3756"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sac-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}