New Oregon State University research shows that juvenile northern red-legged frogs that have experienced climate-related stress as tadpoles are less likely to move on land, putting their survival at risk.
New Oregon State University research shows that juvenile northern red-legged frogs that have experienced climate-related stress as tadpoles are less likely to move on land, putting their survival at risk.
The findings indicate changing patterns of precipitation and drought will influence the distribution and persistence of animals that live in freshwater habitats, said Evan Bredeweg, an OSU aquatic ecologist and lead author of the study.
The National Science Foundation-funded study is published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
“This is an understudied but vital stage, where frogs are moving from one habitat to the next and the influence of the aquatic environment and the terrestrial environment act together on this one part of their life history,” said Bredeweg, a graduate student of wildlife ecology in OSU’s College of Agricultural Sciences. “We found that stress on tadpoles is carried over through metamorphosis in how the frogs move, in addition to the stress of being on land for the first time.”
Read more at Oregon State University
Image by Kei Rothblack from Pixabay
