frogs in the city: what do they indicate
DESCRIPTION
SAVE THE FROGS DAY celebrated at CiSTUP, IISc, Bangalore. Frogs, their decline, usage etc were discussed. Plans ahead at CiSTUP is also presented.TRANSCRIPT
Frogs in the City:What do they Indicate?
Gururaja KVCentre for infrastructure, Sustainable Transportation and
Urban Planning (CiSTUP)Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore
Flow of talk
What are frogs? What if, they are not in a city? The Crisis! What we do at CiSTUP?
Did you hear this? If yes, when?
Few more in the Symphony
Frogs are Amphibians What are amphibians?
Those vertebrates that live both in water as well as on land
That’s what is taught!
Photo credit:http://divebarbados.net/Current%20Photos/Pictures/Green%20Turtle%201.jpghttp://www.kidcyber.com.au/IMAGES/hippoaggro_s.jpghttp://homepage.mac.com/wildlifeweb/reptile/gharial/gharial03tfk.jpg
Amphibians are dual lifers! Two stages in life – a tadpole stage and an adult
stage From Greek, Amphi – dual, bian – life forms
What if, they are not in City?
Biological controllers
What if…
Bio-indicators Indicators of environmental health Earthquake early warning systems
Before that briefly about their uniqueness Biphasic life Ectotherms Skin breathers Anamniotes
Ectotherms
Body temperature maintained externally (depends on Sun)
Basking in Sun
Hiding away from Sun
Skin breathers
Anamniotes
Eggs of a bird Eggs of a frog
Habitat specialists
Aquatic, Terrestrial, Arboreal and Fussorials
Metamorphosis
They metamorphose from tadpole to adult
Life span: from 10 months to 55 years
Ecosystem function
Bio-indicators
Indicators of environmental health Decline in population Malformations, diseases Call at higher pitch in cities!
Earthquake early warning systems
They detect changes in ionsphere (Grant and Halliday, 2010)
Perturbations in Ionsphere five days prior to earthquake (detected by VLF and LF)
Possible reason is change in radon content in atmosphere, detected through skin
Days
VLF
# to
ads
Frogs also indicate
Factors Process(es) Climate change Temperature and precipitation patterns are altered so as to
cause disruptions in micro or macro-climatic conditions
Habitat modification
Deforestation and agriculture; drained and filled wetlands, land filling
Habitat fragmentation
Roads, introduced species, and low pH dissect habitats, creating barriers to dispersal.
Introduced species Introduced predators, prey on/ or compete with native amphibians.
UV-B radiation UV-B damages and/ or kills cells, causing egg mortality, lesions, malformations and increased susceptibility to disease and low pH.
Chemical contamination
Toxins cause direct mortality of eggs and adults, mimic endocrine harmones, reduce the prey base, pesticidal effect; fluoranthene.
Acid precipitation and soil
Toxins create barriers to dispersal and cause high egg and larval mortality.
Disease Disease often causes death in amphibians (Chytridiomycosis)
Direct benefits to human!
Antimicrobial peptides
More on AMP…
Image courtesy : Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project
Cultural issues
Frog Hymn (Rig Veda, Mandala 7) http://www.ejvs.laurasianacademy.com/ejvs0302/ejvs0302.txt
Dvija – dual life!! Frog in the boiling water Frog marriage and monsoon Mowgli!!!
Photos: http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y47/reneesparkes/Newer%20stuff/Jungle_Book_Mowgli_Kaa_657.jpg http://therealrevo.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/blog20220boiling_frog.jpg
How many are there?
Recorded 6639 species of amphibians world wide
3 orders, Gymnophiona-183, Caudata-597, Anura-5859
In India, 309 species; Gymnophiona-33, Caudata-1, Anura-275
Gymnophiona
caudata
Anura
The Crisis
Nearly 1/3 of species are endangered, 200 species disappeared in two decades
Main reason for decline – Habitat fragmentation, alteration and attrition
Pesticide usage induce malformations and weaken immune system
UV-B radiations, climate change Fungal infection - Chytridiomycosis Homogenization of species diversity Data available are poor! Many more to vanish before
recording?
Save the frogs before its too late!
In Urban Environment
But what do we know from cities?
In India Darjeeling 1962, 7 species Pune 1976,77, 79, 13 species;
in 2009, 14 species, 9 out of the city, 4 beyond 20km
Dharwad 1989, 13 species Bangalore 1999, 16 species
(Karthikeyan and Daniels);
Bangalore Valley School 2008, 12 species (Vishnupriya, 2008)
Apart from ‘list’, nothing!
So no statistical comparison possible Cannot say to decision makers, what needs to be
done? But changes in Bangalore are obvious…
# Tanks in Bangalore has come down (379 in 1973 and 81 at present, Ramachandra and Malvikaa, 2007)
Temperature on rise (~2-2.5°C), Green spaces are decreasing (46000ha in 1973 – 11000ha in 2009; (Ramachandra and Uttam, 2010)
Land-conversion rampant Trees along the road side gone!
Just a glimpse through Google
Same place in 2009
Similarly few more places
Same in 2009
What we do at CiSTUP?
Base line data on Amphibians of Bangalore Document species in each water tank/green
space Drivers of change Citizen science initiative Hands on training
Acknowledgements
SV Krishnamurthy for introducing me to Frogs TV Ramachandra for introducing me to Urban
systems TG Sitharam for accommodating me in CiSTUP
Special thanksThis work was not possible otherwise, if the people mentioned below had not accompanied me in field and made me feel secure, while they took the pain of travelling during night hours, amidst dense forest, heavy rains, tough terrain, creeping creatures and frightening animals.
Special thanks to you all - Sameer Ali, Vishnu D Mukri, Karthick B, Sreekantha, Srikanth Naik,
Lakshminarayana, Nayak CR, Dinesh KP, Amit Yadav, Seshadri KS, Dhanpal G Naidu, Alkananda,
Supriya, Uttam Kumar, Hemant Ogle, Palot MJ, Divakar K Mesta, Rao GR, Sudhira HS, Vijaya
Cavale, Harish Bhat, Sumanth, Thulasiraman, Vishnupriya S, Mittal Gala, Ramanath
Chandrashekar, Dayani Chakravarthy, Vipul Ramanuj, Srinidhi Kashyap, Subramanian KA,
Gowri Shanker, Pradeep Gangadkar AS, Archna Singh, Boominathan M, Subash Chandran MD,
Nisarg R Prakash, Ganesh HS, Aravind NA, Vijay Mohan Raj, Manoj Kumar, Lingaraja,
Manikantan, Avinash KG, Suresh GB, Manjunatha MJ, Manjunatha Reddy, Sushanto Sen, Vijay
Kumar SP, Varun Torsekar, Doris, Preeti and forest guards, watchers and many on lookers.
It’s still not too late,
SAVE THE FROGS
Thank you