Wildlife Acoustics have released a new version of their Song Meter automated digital recorder. Among the most interesting features are an even lower power consumption and twice the storage space.
It’ll be interesting to see where they take these boxes in the future.
One of the most proposed causes for the declining amphibian populations has been the disease chytridiomycosis, which is caused by the skin infection by the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Although evidence for some populations linking the decline with the fungus has been limited, the mechanism by which the disease may kill the frogs was unknown, until now. A group of researchers from Australia and United States have published a paper in Science indicating that the fungus inhibits the transport of electrolytes, which ends up killing the frog.
Further studies should confirm and refine their findings.
Jamie Voyles, Sam Young, Lee Berger, Craig Campbell, Wyatt F. Voyles, Anuwat Dinudom, David Cook, Rebecca Webb, Ross A. Alford, Lee F. Skerratt, and Rick Speare. 2009. Pathogenesis of Chytridiomycosis, a Cause of Catastrophic Amphibian Declines. Science 326: 582. DOI: 10.1126/science.1176765.
One of the great things about blogs is that it allows scientists to express their ideas in a more open and direct way. The old way to criticize a paper was to write a letter or a paper and try to get it published. Now, anyone can provide arguments and discuss a paper for the world to see.
In 2004 I tried to publish a rebuttal of the paper “Potential causes for amphibian declines in Puerto Rico” by Burrowes, Joglar and Green, published in Herpetologica. Unfortunately, the editors decided that the wording in their paper was vague enough that it made it hard for them to justify my comments as a rebuttal. I recently stumbled upon the original emails, so I decided to make my original comments of that paper available here. As a disclaimer, I worked with the first two authors for several years and I was one of the students that collected the data used in that paper during that time.
The full citation of the paper is:
Burrowes, Patricia A., Rafael L. Joglar, and David E. Green. 2004. Potential causes for amphibian declines in Puerto Rico. Herpetologica 60: 141-154.
Some of the problems of the paper are: read more
I’ll be attending the SACNAS National Meeting this weekend in Dallas, TX. If you’re there, just look for me.
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