Post by admin on Jun 11, 2014 10:10:30 GMT 8
A Conversation With Darrel R. Frost
An Amphibian’s Best Friend
GLENN COLLINS
May 26, 2014
Darrel R. Frost, the chief herpetology curator at the American Museum of Natural History, has done fieldwork in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, Namibia, Peru, South Africa and Vietnam. He is also a sort of gatekeeper for amphibians.
Dr. Frost, 62, oversees the museum’s catalog of the class Amphibia — more than 7,200 species, comprising frogs, salamanders and limbless, soil-dwelling caecilians. Its web page attracts more than a million views a year.
An avuncular conversationalist who enjoys a laugh — a good thing, given the perilous state of amphibians on the planet — he also keeps two roaming tortoises (amphibian reptiles) in a room next to his office; the larger is a 100-pound, 15-year-old African tortoise named Mud.
Q. WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE AMPHIBIANS?
A. Well, frogs, for example, are extraordinary and come across to people as gentle and benign. There are frogs as small as a house fly, yet some are 13 inches long, weighing seven pounds. Some water frogs can jump more than 10 feet. They can live 20 years or more — and some tortoises can live to be 200. Frogs existed at least 200 million years ago, well before the asteroid strike that caused nuclear winter and killed the dinosaurs. Still, the frogs survived — how, is anybody’s guess.
FROGS AND TOADS HAVE ALSO BEEN POPULAR FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.
Yes, like Kermit the Frog. It’s pretty clear that he’s an American green frog. And Toad, of Toad Hall? Well, he could drive.
WHAT’S THE LATEST FROG MATH?
Eighty-eight percent of amphibians are frogs, and we know of 6,339 species, substantially more than all mammals.
WHY DO AMPHIBIANS SERVE AS BIOLOGICAL BAROMETERS FOR LIFE ON EARTH?
They’re very sensitive to any perturbation in their environment. And they’re similar to us — they have moist, permeable skins, and so do we. And they are particularly vulnerable to airborne and waterborne toxins: funguses, acid rain, heavy metals, herbicides and other pollutants.
TALK ABOUT YOUR BOOK “AMPHIBIAN SPECIES OF THE WORLD.”
It’s a global sourcebook for people working in the science of biodiversity, and it’s become a tool for conservationists, policy makers, wildlife regulators and forestry, customs and enforcement officials. The catalog before it was published in 1882, identifying 800 amphibian species. Our 1985 catalog identified 4,014 species. Once, there was little worldwide access to the amphibian literature. Currently, it’s online, it’s got 20,000 pages, and we count more than 7,200 species. We used to update the catalog once a year to reflect new findings. Now it is updated almost every day.
WHY IS THE NUMBER OF SPECIES GROWING, WHEN AMPHIBIANS ARE IN DECLINE?
Some 150 new species are being named each year, because collectors can get into more places to discover them. The rapid discovery of new species involves new techniques, like molecular assaying. But it is also the flip side of habitat destruction. Roads and associated development allow you to get into areas easily, to discover things that were previously unreachable, but these opened-up habitats are also increasingly inhospitable to wildlife.
Many amphibian species have gone extinct in the last 30 years, and many more are threatened. In 1975, a colleague and I observed a major die-off of Tarahumara frogs in the mountains to the west of Nogales, Ariz. Most were dead; all of the others were in big trouble. That haunts me.
We thought at the time that it was acid rain that got them, but they were knocked out by the chytridiomycosis fungus, which digests the frogs’ skin — and it burns them. It’s really terrible for them and is a scourge that has damaged frog populations and caused extinctions worldwide.
In 1979, in the mountains of Guatemala, we observed hundreds and hundreds of breeding frogs at one site. But we’ve never seen them there again. That’s a shocking and strange thing, to have observed something that’s never going to be seen again.
My great-grandmother saw wild bison on the plains of Wyoming. No one will ever see that again. I saw native populations of Tarahumara frogs in Arizona. No one will ever see that again, either. It is not a good feeling.
WHY IS THAT THREE-FOOT-LONG TAXONOMY TREE FRAMED ON YOUR OFFICE WALL?
We did a very large DNA analysis to establish the evolutionary tree of amphibians, and after two years of work we published that in 2006. In doing so, we pushed the whole biological community to come to grips with the phylogenetic classifications that we identified.
Now, eight years later, people are still debating it, but in that time the supercomputers that do the analysis are 10 times faster, so it would be interesting to redo it and push the data even harder.
HAS DNA RESEARCH CONTRIBUTED TO THE DISCOVERY OF NEW AMPHIBIAN SPECIES?
I think that people were unprepared for the kind of diversity that exists worldwide, and especially in tropical Asia and Indonesia, until molecular data made it impossible to overlook. There is an enormous amount of previously unassessed diversity, much of it being lost before we even know what it is.
ASIDE FROM YOUR FIELD RESEARCH, DO YOU GET OUT OF THE LAB?
I’ve identified specimens for enforcement people at Kennedy Airport. For example, an importer claimed it had legal frogs from the Philippines, for frogs’ legs. But they weren’t. They were actually protected frogs, likely from India.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN YOUR ATTACHMENT TO THE TORTOISES IN THE NEXT OFFICE?
Tortoises have a calming effect. They remind you of what it is you do. They are friendly — it’s like having a big dog — but their personalities are a lot like cats. And they may look slow-moving, but from six feet away they can come at you before you can get out of the way.
WHY DID YOU BECOME A HERPETOLOGIST?
I grew up in southern Arizona, a great place to become a biologist — 12 species of rattlesnakes and great biodiversity, including horned lizards in my grandparents’ backyard. When I was 4, my parents were driving us out to Yuma to visit my great-aunt, and we stopped at a park along the way. I began wandering around, and I saw a baby rattlesnake at the base of a tree. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I excitedly told my father about it. He came over and pounded it with a tire iron. I was sorry I said anything.
Once, I lost a mountain kingsnake in our house. It was suddenly rediscovered when it fell out of the kitchen cabinet on my mom’s head!
DESPITE THAT, YOU KEPT COLLECTING?
Discovery is what it is all about. My interests have focused on some of the more technical aspects of science, but discovering the diversity of life is what matters, whether in the lab or in the field. And, I suppose, being faithful to my roots. I still keep three snakes in my office.
I’m still a herper and a snaker — someone really fascinated with snakes and lizards, turtles and amphibians. It’s sobering, though, to realize that most of the frogs I saw as a child are now extinct in Arizona.
CAN MONITORING DECLINING SPECIES BE DEPRESSING?
Yes and no. I am fascinated by life, but I don’t enjoy seeing so much just slipping away. Every generation thinks that now is normal. It isn’t. But I’m glad I am the age I am. I have seen things no one will see again and I have loved doing it. But I see things happening now on the planet that will not end well.
WHY DO YOU SAY YOU’RE GLAD?
Because I won’t be around.
We spoke for four hours. What follows is an edited and condensed version of our conversation.
Source: mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/science/an-amphibians-best-friend.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&referrer
An Amphibian’s Best Friend
GLENN COLLINS
May 26, 2014
Darrel R. Frost, the chief herpetology curator at the American Museum of Natural History, has done fieldwork in Ethiopia, Guatemala, Mexico, Namibia, Peru, South Africa and Vietnam. He is also a sort of gatekeeper for amphibians.
Dr. Frost, 62, oversees the museum’s catalog of the class Amphibia — more than 7,200 species, comprising frogs, salamanders and limbless, soil-dwelling caecilians. Its web page attracts more than a million views a year.
An avuncular conversationalist who enjoys a laugh — a good thing, given the perilous state of amphibians on the planet — he also keeps two roaming tortoises (amphibian reptiles) in a room next to his office; the larger is a 100-pound, 15-year-old African tortoise named Mud.
Q. WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE AMPHIBIANS?
A. Well, frogs, for example, are extraordinary and come across to people as gentle and benign. There are frogs as small as a house fly, yet some are 13 inches long, weighing seven pounds. Some water frogs can jump more than 10 feet. They can live 20 years or more — and some tortoises can live to be 200. Frogs existed at least 200 million years ago, well before the asteroid strike that caused nuclear winter and killed the dinosaurs. Still, the frogs survived — how, is anybody’s guess.
FROGS AND TOADS HAVE ALSO BEEN POPULAR FICTIONAL CHARACTERS.
Yes, like Kermit the Frog. It’s pretty clear that he’s an American green frog. And Toad, of Toad Hall? Well, he could drive.
WHAT’S THE LATEST FROG MATH?
Eighty-eight percent of amphibians are frogs, and we know of 6,339 species, substantially more than all mammals.
WHY DO AMPHIBIANS SERVE AS BIOLOGICAL BAROMETERS FOR LIFE ON EARTH?
They’re very sensitive to any perturbation in their environment. And they’re similar to us — they have moist, permeable skins, and so do we. And they are particularly vulnerable to airborne and waterborne toxins: funguses, acid rain, heavy metals, herbicides and other pollutants.
TALK ABOUT YOUR BOOK “AMPHIBIAN SPECIES OF THE WORLD.”
It’s a global sourcebook for people working in the science of biodiversity, and it’s become a tool for conservationists, policy makers, wildlife regulators and forestry, customs and enforcement officials. The catalog before it was published in 1882, identifying 800 amphibian species. Our 1985 catalog identified 4,014 species. Once, there was little worldwide access to the amphibian literature. Currently, it’s online, it’s got 20,000 pages, and we count more than 7,200 species. We used to update the catalog once a year to reflect new findings. Now it is updated almost every day.
WHY IS THE NUMBER OF SPECIES GROWING, WHEN AMPHIBIANS ARE IN DECLINE?
Some 150 new species are being named each year, because collectors can get into more places to discover them. The rapid discovery of new species involves new techniques, like molecular assaying. But it is also the flip side of habitat destruction. Roads and associated development allow you to get into areas easily, to discover things that were previously unreachable, but these opened-up habitats are also increasingly inhospitable to wildlife.
Many amphibian species have gone extinct in the last 30 years, and many more are threatened. In 1975, a colleague and I observed a major die-off of Tarahumara frogs in the mountains to the west of Nogales, Ariz. Most were dead; all of the others were in big trouble. That haunts me.
We thought at the time that it was acid rain that got them, but they were knocked out by the chytridiomycosis fungus, which digests the frogs’ skin — and it burns them. It’s really terrible for them and is a scourge that has damaged frog populations and caused extinctions worldwide.
In 1979, in the mountains of Guatemala, we observed hundreds and hundreds of breeding frogs at one site. But we’ve never seen them there again. That’s a shocking and strange thing, to have observed something that’s never going to be seen again.
My great-grandmother saw wild bison on the plains of Wyoming. No one will ever see that again. I saw native populations of Tarahumara frogs in Arizona. No one will ever see that again, either. It is not a good feeling.
WHY IS THAT THREE-FOOT-LONG TAXONOMY TREE FRAMED ON YOUR OFFICE WALL?
We did a very large DNA analysis to establish the evolutionary tree of amphibians, and after two years of work we published that in 2006. In doing so, we pushed the whole biological community to come to grips with the phylogenetic classifications that we identified.
Now, eight years later, people are still debating it, but in that time the supercomputers that do the analysis are 10 times faster, so it would be interesting to redo it and push the data even harder.
HAS DNA RESEARCH CONTRIBUTED TO THE DISCOVERY OF NEW AMPHIBIAN SPECIES?
I think that people were unprepared for the kind of diversity that exists worldwide, and especially in tropical Asia and Indonesia, until molecular data made it impossible to overlook. There is an enormous amount of previously unassessed diversity, much of it being lost before we even know what it is.
ASIDE FROM YOUR FIELD RESEARCH, DO YOU GET OUT OF THE LAB?
I’ve identified specimens for enforcement people at Kennedy Airport. For example, an importer claimed it had legal frogs from the Philippines, for frogs’ legs. But they weren’t. They were actually protected frogs, likely from India.
CAN YOU EXPLAIN YOUR ATTACHMENT TO THE TORTOISES IN THE NEXT OFFICE?
Tortoises have a calming effect. They remind you of what it is you do. They are friendly — it’s like having a big dog — but their personalities are a lot like cats. And they may look slow-moving, but from six feet away they can come at you before you can get out of the way.
WHY DID YOU BECOME A HERPETOLOGIST?
I grew up in southern Arizona, a great place to become a biologist — 12 species of rattlesnakes and great biodiversity, including horned lizards in my grandparents’ backyard. When I was 4, my parents were driving us out to Yuma to visit my great-aunt, and we stopped at a park along the way. I began wandering around, and I saw a baby rattlesnake at the base of a tree. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I excitedly told my father about it. He came over and pounded it with a tire iron. I was sorry I said anything.
Once, I lost a mountain kingsnake in our house. It was suddenly rediscovered when it fell out of the kitchen cabinet on my mom’s head!
DESPITE THAT, YOU KEPT COLLECTING?
Discovery is what it is all about. My interests have focused on some of the more technical aspects of science, but discovering the diversity of life is what matters, whether in the lab or in the field. And, I suppose, being faithful to my roots. I still keep three snakes in my office.
I’m still a herper and a snaker — someone really fascinated with snakes and lizards, turtles and amphibians. It’s sobering, though, to realize that most of the frogs I saw as a child are now extinct in Arizona.
CAN MONITORING DECLINING SPECIES BE DEPRESSING?
Yes and no. I am fascinated by life, but I don’t enjoy seeing so much just slipping away. Every generation thinks that now is normal. It isn’t. But I’m glad I am the age I am. I have seen things no one will see again and I have loved doing it. But I see things happening now on the planet that will not end well.
WHY DO YOU SAY YOU’RE GLAD?
Because I won’t be around.
We spoke for four hours. What follows is an edited and condensed version of our conversation.
Source: mobile.nytimes.com/2014/05/27/science/an-amphibians-best-friend.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1&referrer