Survival of climate warming through niche shifts: Evidence from frogs on tropical islands.

How will organisms cope when forced into warmer-than-preferred thermal environments? This is a key question facing our ability to monitor and manage biota as average annual temperatures increase, and is of particular concern for range-limited terrestrial species unable to track their preferred climatic envelope. Being ectothermic, desiccation prone, and often spatially restricted, island-inhabiting tropical amphibians exemplify this scenario. Pre-Anthropocene case studies of how insular amphibian populations responded to the enforced occupation of warmer-than-ancestral habitats may add a valuable, but currently lacking, perspective. We studied a population of frogs from the Seychelles endemic family Sooglossidae which, due to historic sea-level rise, have been forced to occupy a significantly warmer island (Praslin) than their ancestors and close living relatives. Evidence from thermal activity patterns, bioacoustics, body size distributions, and ancestral state estimations suggest that this population shifted its thermal niche in response to restricted opportunities for elevational dispersal. Relative to conspecifics, Praslin sooglossids also have divergent nuclear genotypes and call characters, a finding consistent with adaptation causing speciation in a novel thermal environment. Using an evolutionary perspective, our study reveals that some tropical amphibians have survived episodes of historic warming without the aid of dispersal and therefore may have the capacity to adapt to the currently warming climate. However, two otherwise co-distributed sooglossid species are absent from Praslin, and the deep evolutionary divergence between the frogs on Praslin and their closest extant relatives (~8 million years) may have allowed for gradual thermal adaptation and speciation. Thus, local extinction is still a likely outcome for tropical frogs experiencing warming climates in the absence of dispersal corridors to thermal refugia.

Meeting ultraviolet B radiation requirements of amphibians in captivity: a case study with mountain chicken frogs (Leptodactylus fallax) and general recommendations for pre-release health screening.

Conservation breeding programmes are a tool used to prevent amphibian extinctions. The husbandry requirements of amphibians are complex. Ongoing research is needed to ensure optimal management of those captive-bred animals destined, in particular, for reintroduction. The UV-B and vitamin D3 requirements of amphibians are largely unknown. Metabolic bone disease has been reported in a number of species. These include the Critically Endangered mountain chicken frog (Leptodactylus fallax) reared in captivity on diets supplemented with a high-calcium multivitamin and mineral supplement containing vitamin D3 but without UV-B provision. Captive-bred L. fallax being reared for reintroduction to Montserrat were provided with UV-B radiation from metamorphosis and were fed on insects supplemented with vitamins and minerals. Overlapping heat, light and UV-B gradients were provided, mimicking what we believe best represents the natural situation and thereby facilitated self-regulation of UV-B exposure. A subset of 10 frogs was periodically radiographed to assess skeletal health. Radiographic bone density and anatomical integrity appeared unremarkable when compared with a wild caught L. fallax. In addition to other routine health-screening, we recommend that radiography be performed to a structured schedule on a subset of all captive-bred and reared amphibians to assess skeletal health and to gauge the appropriateness of captive husbandry. We demonstrate here that, through the appropriate provision of a combination of both UV-B radiation and dietary supplementation, L. fallax can be bred and reared in captivity with healthy skeletal development.

Erysipelas in a numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus).

An adult, female numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus) was submitted to the Perth Zoo Veterinary Department for postmortem examination in November 2011. This radio-collared wild numbat had been found dead in the Dryandra Woodland, 191 km southeast of Perth, Western Australia. On external examination, the body condition was good. Three ticks (Ixodes spp.) were found on the thoracic region. The external pouch was contaminated with dirt and palpably flocculent, and the nipples oozed a purulent material. Histopathology showed widespread fibrin thrombi containing bacterial microcolonies within interstitial vessels of the mammary gland with surrounding necrotic tissue. Bacterial microcolonies were present throughout the kidney, intestine, lung, and mammary tissue, and culture produced a moderate growth of Erysipelothrix rhusiopathiae. Although erysipelas has been reported as a cause of morbidity and mortality in marsupials, this is the first report of erysipelas in the order Dasyuromorphia (marsupial carnivores) and highlights the need for ongoing surveillance for causes of disease in wild numbats and species recovery programs.

Ecology: global warming and amphibian losses.

Is global warming contributing to amphibian declines and extinctions by promoting outbreaks of the chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis? Analysing patterns from the American tropics, Pounds et al. envisage a process in which a single warm year triggers die-offs in a particular area (for instance, 1987 in the case of Monteverde, Costa Rica). However, we show here that populations of two frog species in the Australian tropics experienced increasing developmental instability, which is evidence of stress, at least two years before they showed chytrid-related declines. Because the working model of Pounds et al. is incomplete, their test of the climate-linked epidemic hypothesis could be inconclusive.