Daily non-political popular news in brief.

Beavers helping frogs, toads survive

01-10-2007 · EurekAlert!

Though considered a pest because of the culvert-clogging dams it builds on streams, the beaver is an ally in conserving valuable wetland habitat for declining amphibian populations, a University of Alberta study shows.

Keywords: beavers, helping, frogs, toads, survive, beaver, frog, toad

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Study challenges belief that tree frogs depress metabolic rate after 'waxing' themselves
10-16-2006 · EurekAlert!
Researchers from the University of Florida explore wiping behaviours in a tree frog that waxes itself, and test whether these frogs become dormant to conserve energy during dehydration. Many amphibians have skin that offers little resistance to evaporative water loss. To compensate, these and some other arboreal frogs secrete lipids and then use an elaborate series of wiping motions to rub the waxy secretions over their entire bodies.
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Underestimation of frog numbers causes concern
10-30-2007 · EurekAlert!
Frogs are vanishing from all the world's ecosystems with unprecedented speed. It is thought that more than 100 species have died out since 1980 alone. In a paper published in the online, open-access journal PLoS ONE, a team of experts, including researchers from the University of Canterbury, says the number of species has been strongly underestimated and they are calling for action.
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The love song of male túngara frogs
02-08-2007 · EurekAlert!
Male túngara frogs produce two types of calls to attract females: simple and complex. Female túngara frogs, as well as unintended receivers such as frog-eating bats and blood-sucking flies, prefer complex to simple mating calls. Bernal et al. tested whether bats and flies prefer complex calls because they indicate higher quality males and/or higher male density. The authors found that call complexity indicate higher abundance of prey/host.
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Tadpole Slayer: Mystery epidemic imperils frogs
11-24-2007 · Science News Online
An emerging protozoal disease has begun to trigger mass die-offs of frog tadpoles throughout much of the United States.
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Indigenous water frogs under threat
11-29-2007 · EurekAlert!
Indigenous water frogs can be crowded out by immigrant or imported species. This is the finding of a Franco-German study. The scientists investigated water frog populations in France and Northern Spain and noticed that the marsh frog (Rana ridibunda), which normally occurs only in Eastern Europe, has the potential to crowd out indigenous species like Graf’s hybrid frog (Rana grafi) and the Iberian water frog (Rana perezi).
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Right angles are all wrong for tree frog adhesion
04-01-2007 · EurekAlert!
Tree frogs have the unique ability to stick to smooth surfaces even when they are tilted well beyond the vertical -- some small tree frogs can even adhere when completely upside down. Conversely when walking or jumping they can detach their toe pads easily. Researchers from the University of Glasgow will present insights into how this fascinating ability is controlled.
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Bacteria show promise in fending off global amphibian killer
05-23-2007 · EurekAlert!
First in a petri dish and now on live salamanders, probiotic bacteria seem to repel a deadly fungus being blamed for worldwide amphibian deaths and even extinctions. Though the research is in its early stages, scientists are encouraged by results that could lead the way to helping threatened species like mountain yellow-legged frogs of the Sierra Nevada mountains of southern California.
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Device helps patients survive, regain function til transplant
08-29-2007 · EurekAlert!
A new generation of implanted heart-assisting pump does very well at helping severely ill heart-failure patients survive, and thrive, until they receive a heart transplant, a new study shows. The device also helped patients' original hearts regain function and allowed their other organs to heal by restoring blood flow.
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Bite This: Borrowed toad toxins save snake's neck
02-03-2007 · Science News Online
An Asian snake gets toxins by salvaging them from the poisonous toads it eats.
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Caribbean frogs started with a single, ancient voyage on a raft from South America
06-06-2007 · EurekAlert!
Nearly all of the 162 land-breeding frog species on Caribbean islands originated from a single species that rafted on a sea voyage from South America about 30-to-50-million years ago, according to a DNA-sequence-analysis study. The discovery is surprising because no previous theories of how the frogs arrived had predicted a single origin and because groups of close relatives rarely dominate the fauna of an entire continent or major geographic region.
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