With protection from white-tailed deer and other herbivores with the plastic tubes, hopefully the trees will grow rapidly and begin to turn this field into a young forest (if they can survive the summer heat). We will be tracking the changes that occur as that process unfolds. Thanks to Oria Daugherty (’21) and Caden Croft (’21) for pitching in. Check out the Fern Valley website to learn more!
After over two years of research and compiling information, I am happy to say that my new website “Phytotelm Breeding Frogs of the World” has launched! Phytotelm breeding frogs are those that reproduce in plant-held water bodies like tree holes, leaf axils or the tanks of bromeliads. Currently, I am aware of 256 frog species distributed in eleven families that breed in phytotelmata (approximately three percent of all known frogs). These species are all tropical or subtropical and often have derived parental care behaviors and bizarre adaptations to life in these micro-aquatic habitats. The distribution of these specialized forms in so many different families indicates that this lifestyle has evolved independently many different times. Much remains to be learned about their lives.
Just a few days ago, our first paper on melanistic gray squirrels appeared in the journal Ecology and Evolution. This paper was 海豚加速器破解 in the making, as the first squirrel surveys in this effort were conducted way back in 2010. Using citizen science data, we found that melanistic gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) are widespread but often localized in the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada. Below is a snapshot of some of the coloration patterns we found in this widespread species.
Figure 1 from Lehtinen et al. 2024
We also found that in Ohio, the frequency of the gray versus the black color morph varies dramatically among locations. In the Wooster, Ohio population (in which monitoring began in 2010 and continues to today) significant changes in color morph frequency over time and space were also detected. However, these changes over space and time in the frequency of our black squirrels seem very idiosyncratic and difficult to predict. We suggest that genetic drift may be an important evolutionary mechanism behind these changes. Many thanks to Brian Carlson, Alyssa Hamm (’20), Lexi Riley (’21), Maria Mullen (’18) and Weston Gray (’19) for all of their contributions to this work!
The full text of the paper can be found here.
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I sit here in mid-December with the thermometer holding steady at 19 degrees F (-7 degrees C) and all the frogs, snakes, salamanders and lizards in Ohio are down for a long winter’s nap. Only a few weeks ago, however, I was studying the Tobago glass frog down in Trinidad and Tobago where it never got below 77 F (25 degrees C) and the snakes, lizards and frogs were seemingly crawling and jumping everywhere (sorry, no salamanders in T&T).
The focus of my trip was this fellow, the Tobago glass frog (Hyalinobatrachium orientale tobagoense).
Thanks to Dr. Cori Richards-Zawacki at the University of Pittsburgh and the hard work of Mackenzie Goltz (’20), we now have a dart frog colony at the College of Wooster! These little beauties are originally from Panama and are brightly colored and day-active. Of course, we don’t have rainforests in Ohio so the tropical room in our greenhouse in Williams Hall is their new home. Each tank has a bromeliad for them to use for shelter and breeding and the males are already starting to call. Hopefully, this is the beginning of a long and productive residency in Wooster!
One of our Oophaga pumilio dart frogs on a bromeliad.
