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result(s) for
"Frogs Behavior."
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Weird frogs
Features up-close photographs, captions explaining the purpose of the distinct physical features of each frog, and other details about how they live.
Book
Behavioral Modification of Evaporative Water Loss by a Puerto Rican Frog
Leptodactylid frogs (Eleutherodactylus coqui Thomas) reduce rates of evaporative water loss threefold by adjusting their postures and activities in response to changing conditions of availability of water during their nocturnal activity periods. Frogs that do not make these adjustments experience a potentially lethal loss of body water on a rainless night. Dehydration of a frog's body tissues increases its resting metabolic rate and lowers its maximum rate of aerobic metabolism. Water is reabsorbed from urine in the bladder to maintain tissue water content on dry nights. Use of water—conserving postures precludes vocalization by male frogs and response to calling males by females. Frogs in water—conserving postures feed less readily than active frogs. Frogs in the forest canopy experience higher rates of evaporative water loss than those in the understory, but there are more anthropods in the canopy, and leaf surfaces are twice as likely to be wet by rain. Despite these potential benefits of activity in the forest canopy, most frogs remain in understory vegetation. In that microhabitat their behavioral and physiological adjustments permit them to occupy their normal perches despite wide fluctuations in hydric conditions.
Journal Article
Frogs and toads
\"From the smooth, damp animals that leap about to the warty species that tend to run or walk, this book is a guide to these popular and charismatic creatures. Chris Mattison describes the evolution and classification of frogs and toads, highlighting distinctive and notable species and providing detailed information about each of the 49 recognized families. He describes their eventful life cycle, diverse habitats, and the various methods they use to attract mates and hunt for food. The book also explores frogs' interaction with humans, from modern day collection for the meat trade, scientific research, and the trade in exotic pets, to how their survival is threatened by over-exploration, habitat destruction, climate change, and disease.\"--Jacket flap.
Book
New effects of Roundup on amphibians: Predators reduce herbicide mortality; herbicides induce antipredator morphology
The use of pesticides is important for growing crops and protecting human health by reducing the prevalence of targeted pest species. However, less attention is given to the potential unintended effects on nontarget species, including taxonomic groups that are of current conservation concern. One issue raised in recent years is the potential for pesticides to become more lethal in the presence of predatory cues, a phenomenon observed thus far only in the laboratory. A second issue is whether pesticides can induce unintended trait changes in nontarget species, particularly trait changes that might mimic adaptive responses to natural environmental stressors. Using outdoor mesocosms, I created simple wetland communities containing leaf litter, algae, zooplankton, and three species of tadpoles (wood frogs [
Rana sylvatica
or
Lithobates sylvaticus
], leopard frogs [
R. pipiens
or
L. pipiens
], and American toads [
Bufo americanus
or
Anaxyrus americanus
]). I exposed the communities to a factorial combination of environmentally relevant herbicide concentrations (0, 1, 2, or 3 mg acid equivalents [a.e.]/L of Roundup Original MAX) crossed with three predator-cue treatments (no predators, adult newts [
Notophthalmus viridescens
], or larval dragonflies [
Anax junius
]). Without predator cues, mortality rates from Roundup were consistent with past studies. Combined with cues from the most risky predator (i.e., dragonflies), Roundup became less lethal (in direct contrast to past laboratory studies). This reduction in mortality was likely caused by the herbicide stratifying in the water column and predator cues scaring the tadpoles down to the benthos where herbicide concentrations were lower. Even more striking was the discovery that Roundup induced morphological changes in the tadpoles. In wood frog and leopard frog tadpoles, Roundup induced relatively deeper tails in the same direction and of the same magnitude as the adaptive changes induced by dragonfly cues. To my knowledge, this is the first study to show that a pesticide can induce morphological changes in a vertebrate. Moreover, the data suggest that the herbicide might be activating the tadpoles' developmental pathways used for antipredator responses. Collectively, these discoveries suggest that the world's most widely applied herbicide may have much further-reaching effects on nontarget species than previous considered.
Journal Article
The book of frogs : a life-size guide to six hundred species from around the world
With over 7,000 known species, frogs display a stunning array of forms and behaviors. A single gram of the toxin produced by the skin of the golden poison dart frog can kill 100,000 people. Male Darwin frogs carry their tadpoles in their vocal sacs for sixty days before coughing them out into the world. The wood frogs of North America freeze every winter, reanimating in the spring from the glucose and urea that prevent cell collapse. -- Publisher.
Book
The influences of urbanization on breeding behavior of American bullfrog
Urbanized areas often exhibit high levels of anthropogenic noise, which can mask or interfere with animal communication signals, especially those that use sound to communicate, making it challenging for individuals to detect and interpret acoustic cues. While calling is crucial for anuran breeding and communication, the coping mechanisms of city dwelling and cosmopolitan species in urbanized environments remain understudied. Given that invasive species have higher environmental adaptability than native species (because of habitat specificity and environmental sensitivity), we studied the calling patterns of the invasive American bullfrog (Aquarana catesbeiana) in different levels of urbanized areas in South Korea. In our study, we found an early onset of calling activities in urbanized A. catesbeiana populations, which suggests a change induced by factors related to urbanization on breeding phenology. Additionally, urban populations show more intense diurnal calling activities but shorter breeding periods than non-urban populations. The results indicate water temperature and urban noise as the leading factors influencing calling activities in A. catesbeiana. Urbanization induced changes in breeding and calling activities might have facilitated A. catesbeiana to invade and establish populations outside their natural ecological niches. Thus, this study sheds light on the effect of urbanization on frog breeding activities and how an invasive species copes with modified environments in new areas.
Journal Article
Froggy goes to the library
When Froggy, Mom, and Pollywogilina set out for the library, Froggy brings a wheelbarrow to hold all the books he plans to borrow but he is so excited that he forgets to use his indoor voice.
Book
Nuance in the Narrative of a Brown Poison Frog: Environmental Alkaloids and Specialized Foraging in a Presumed Toxin-Free and Diet-Generalized Species
In poison frogs (Dendrobatidae), conspicuous colors have evolved repeatedly in tandem with high numbers and quantities of skin toxins (alkaloids). Here, we focus on an inconspicuously-colored species—
Silverstoneia flotator
—which has long been deemed toxin-free and thought to forage opportunistically on mites and ants. Both assumptions have received some empirical support, but there is also evidence that predators avoid
S. flotator
. In a Panamanian
S. flotator
population, we sampled invertebrates in frog diets and the surrounding environment (using Berlese and pitfall traps) and screened for skin, dietary, and environmental alkaloids using untargeted metabolomics. We found that while the frogs are opportunistic consumers of mites and ants, they display preferences at finer taxonomic scales (for symphypleonan springtails and
Pheidole
ants). We also annotated 64 skin compounds as alkaloids, 38 of which were present in the environment. One alkaloid present in the skin and environment is likely the highly potent epibatidine. While the average biosynthetic (class and superclass) diversity of alkaloids in a dorsal skin sample is higher than that of a ventral skin and environmental—but not dietary—sample, environmental samples diverge more in their alkaloids’ biosynthetic diversities than do dietary or skin samples. The frogs consume a consistent set of alkaloids, forage in a variable chemical space, and possess diverse dorsal skin alkaloids. They might use finer-scale diet specialization to modulate the types, quantities, and numbers of alkaloids they ingest. We encourage further examination of inconspicuously-colored taxa to better understand the ecological importance of diet-acquired toxins and specialized diets in these organisms.
Journal Article
Froggy goes to Grandma's
\"When Froggy and his family go to visit Grandma, they have all kinds of fun!\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
Motor cortical control of vocal interaction in neotropical singing mice
Like many adaptive behaviors, acoustic communication often requires rapid modification of motor output in response to sensory cues. However, little is known about the sensorimotor transformations that underlie such complex natural behaviors. In this study, we examine vocal exchanges in Alston’s singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina). We find that males modify singing behavior during social interactions on a subsecond time course that resembles both traditional sensorimotor tasks and conversational speech. We identify an orofacial motor cortical region and, via a series of perturbation experiments, demonstrate a hierarchical control of vocal production, with the motor cortex influencing the pacing of singing behavior on a moment-by-moment basis, enabling precise vocal interactions. These results suggest a systems-level framework for understanding the sensorimotor transformations that underlie natural social interactions.
Journal Article