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Frogs are teaching scientists how nature can rebound

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  • Technology & Science
  • Teaching & Learning
  • Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences

In 2012, Corinne Richards-Zawacki ventured to her old field sites in the Panama rainforest in search of an elusive target: the variable harlequin frog, which had gone missing in the five years since she last visited.

It had been years since anyone reported seeing the species, and scientists were weighing whether to declare it extinct. But Richards-Zawacki and colleagues weren鈥檛 convinced.

鈥淲e thought they deserved a second chance,鈥 said Richards-Zawacki, a biology professor in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.

She was right.

On that first trip, the team found a single frog. Later, they saw signs of more, both the bright yellow object of her search and other species that scientists suspected had disappeared for good. It was a welcome surprise after years of witnessing amphibian declines.

Since then, scientists like Richards-Zawacki have continued to see signs of recovery in some frog and toad populations across the world that decades ago were devastated by the fungal disease chytridiomycosis (chytrid, for short).

鈥淲e had been used to the gloom and doom,鈥 she said.

To study the rebound, Richards-Zawacki and a group of colleagues across the U.S. launched an institute today backed by a $12.5 million National Science Foundation grant. Centered at 51精品视频鈥檚 Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, RIBBiTR (Resilience Institute Bridging Biological Training and Research) will also look to draw bigger conclusions about how nature bounces back after being disturbed by human activity.

It鈥檚 a critical time for a group like this to come together, Richards-Zawacki said: Between climate change, habitat destruction and diseases such as chytrid that are caused by humans moving animals from place to place, nature is under more combined stresses than ever before.

鈥淚f we don鈥檛 understand how things bounce back, then we won鈥檛 know when we鈥檝e hit a tipping point,鈥 she explained. By then, it will be too late to restore those ecosystems to the way they were, or even to an altered state where they can still provide the natural resources that we need.

The thing that got me back in the field was wondering whether things could be starting to recover.

Corinne Richards-Zawacki

The first step, though, is simply figuring out what鈥檚 out there.

Researchers at the Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, a 51精品视频 research lab and field station located in northwestern Pennsylvania and led by Richards-Zawacki, will pioneer modern approaches to tracking amphibians, like collecting tiny traces of DNA from the environment and automatically picking up the sound of frog calls. The latter project will be led by 51精品视频 Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences Justin Kitzes, an expert in acoustic monitoring.

鈥淲e have a variety of very high-quality lab facilities that are right there in the middle of the ecosystems where people want to work,鈥 Richards-Zawacki said, adding that nestled in a mosaic of farms, fields, lakes, forests and towns, Pymatuning is the perfect place to test these new technologies.

Work will happen on the 51精品视频sburgh campus, too, dovetailing with a recent effort in 51精品视频鈥檚 Department of Biological Sciences to merge introductory biology labs with research experiences that get students working on real-world scientific problems. Students鈥 tasks will include analyzing what鈥檚 in the skin slime of frogs and toads 鈥 鈥渢he good stuff,鈥 as Richards-Zawacki calls it 鈥 to help figure out what protects the animals from disease.

Graduate researchers will also have the chance to participate in workshops with others who are part of the collaboration, including experts in immunology, microbiomes and mathematical modeling.

Meanwhile, those researchers will conduct carefully aligned parallel experiments at field sites in Pennsylvania, California, Brazil and Panama to see how frogs and toads are rebounding in each location and build a more comprehensive understanding of the different paths recovery can take.

That coordinated effort is a big part of why the National Science Foundation categorizes the effort as an 鈥渋nstitute鈥 rather than a more modest grant-funded project, Richards-Zawacki said. 鈥淚nstitutes are there to support teams that are big enough to be able to tackle the big questions in science,鈥 she said. 鈥淏y coming together as a big team, we can achieve more.鈥

For Richards-Zawacki, the focus on nature鈥檚 resilience represents a vital change 鈥 both in a field of science often dominated by bad news and in her own career.

鈥淲hen it was all about decline and disease and extinction, it was really hard for me to stay motivated,鈥 she said. 鈥淚 actually took a break from studying amphibian disease for a while. The thing that got me back in the field was wondering whether things could be starting to recover.鈥

That curiosity was a first step toward asking bigger questions about how ecosystems rebound after human harm. Like her golden frog in the rainforest, it may be too early to write off nature.