Working With Ditch Frogs

Finally! I have made the decision to write another blog post. First, to clarify - NO, I am not in South America now. I apologize for the confusion, since my blog's title is still "Andes, Amazon, and Herpetology." I did not want to create a whole new blog just to put a post or two up. And besides, my life is currently focused on herpetology, making this post 1/3 relevant. In case you have forgotten, herpetology is the study of reptiles and amphibians.

So here is the scoop...

What: Same job as last winter
Where: Lots of places. So far: Tallahassee, Auburn (AL), Tallahassee again. Coming up: Wherever rain and warm weather happen.
Who: Me, Alyssa (also returning from last year), John, and Dr. Emily Lemmon and her lab
Why: FWOGS

Okay, now to elaborate a bit. I am currently working as the field crew leader for a big research project led by Dr. Emily Lemmon of Florida State University. I had the same position last winter. It is a temporary job (10 weeks or something), and it involves lots of travel, frog-catching, and insane working hours. I will do my best to explain what the greater project is, as well as my role.

Range map, courtesy of SREL

Here is an important term: reproductive character displacement. What the devil does that mean? Here is an example that just so happens to be directly related to Dr. Lemmon's research. So there is this frog called the Upland Chorus Frog (Pseudacris feriarum). They live throughout a very large portion of the United States, from New Jersey down through Appalachia and across the Bible Belt into eastern Texas. All over its range, these guys have different "contact zones" with other trilling chorus frogs (frogs that sound sort of similar to them). In each of those contact zones the male frogs have slightly altered their call, making them stand out more from their trilling chorus frog brethren. And that, my friends, is an example of reproductive character displacement. Cool, eh? The answer is a resounding yeah, with a Southern accent.

Now then, we can talk about what this job of mine is all about. For her research Dr. Lemmon is interested in this reproductive character displacement business I mentioned a second ago. But for this portion of her research she is not investigating the changes in mating calls of male frogs. Instead, she is studying the selectiveness displayed by Upland Chorus Frog females! Can they detect the minor differences between their local males in Tuskegee National Forest and those guys with that special North Carolina twang out in Uwharrie National Forest? That is where I come in. I am in charge of leading a small field crew (myself, Alyssa, and John) in finding female frogs and performing cruel tests to see which mating calls they are most receptive to. The aforementioned tests most often take place in soundproof chambers within a trailer that we (I) haul across the Earth and back.

"Are y'all part of a traveling circus?" Yes, this thing is full of clowns and elephants.

Male Pseudacris feriarum thinking it knows how to hide

Inside the testing chambers we have a plastic kiddie pool filled partially with water. Also in the pool, on opposite sides, are two speakers. For the tests we place a female frog in the middle and play different mating calls from each speaker in an alternating fashion. Then we watch in agony as the frog sits, waits, turns its head, jumps, swims, climbs up the edge of the pool, and escapes. Not all frogs respond in this way, but a lot do. Others fail to get past the "sits" part before 5 or 10 minutes go by. They get disqualified, and the next frog is then tested. Performing these tests requires patience, and caffeine. Did I mention this all happens at night? No I did not... Well it does. We usually start our testing in the late evening and continue on until anywhere between midnight and 8AM. And I thought I was done with all-nighters after completing that awesome sketchbook I made for art class in college... Okay, and I know I already mentioned caffeine. But I am mentioning it again. It is vital.

Female (bottom), male (top) in amplexus

Now you are probably wondering, "Where on Earth do these poor frogs come from to end up in a soundproof catcall center?" The answer is, we go out in the evening and catch the suckers in beautiful wetlands, usually in the form of dirty roadside ditches. The way we do it is by driving around somewhat aimlessly (if in an unfamiliar area) in the hopes of hearing our frogs chorusing (hence the name "chorus frog"). The frogs are most likely to chorus and mate when there has been recent rain and the temperatures are between tolerably frigid and warm. When we hear a substantial chorus I pull the big old work truck off the shoulder, put on the flashers, and we suit up in rubber boots and headlamps. We wear other clothes too. Even a tight-knit field crew has boundaries. With headlamps equipped the crew scours the flooded ditches for our frogs. Single males are usually pretty easy to find because they are numerous make so much noise. We pay them no mind. Not only do we need females; we need frogs in amplexus, also called mating pairs. We must capture the lovers in the midst of procreation, separate them out, and test the females back at the trailer. The reason we go for mating pairs is that those females have already proven they are gravid ("in the mood") and are more likely to succumb to the allure of a speaker that sounds like a frog.

The workplace. Remember what I said about caffeine?

We have a series of 7 tests we conduct on female frogs. Once we get 20 or so total responses we check that test off the list. Once all 7 tests have an adequate number of results we move on to a new location to do it all again. This field season we tried to finish up testing frogs in the Apalachicola National Forest near Tallahassee, Florida before giving up and heading to Tuskegee National Forest near Auburn, Alabama. We finished up our work in Alabama in only a week, which means we are giving Tally's frogs another shot. Once we complete our work here there are a couple options, which I will not talk about just yet. I am not one for spoilers. Last year we spent time in the Carolinas, as illustrated on my awesome map.

The Carolinas are SO last year

There is a LOT more detail I could go into about my job, from the caffeine-filled IVs I rely upon to the frogs themselves. Instead, you can just ask me stuff. As a warning, I am horrible at finding time to talk on the phone with people from other time zones, and I often refuse to spend my free time doing anything other than sleeping or playing basketball. What I am getting at is, you might not get an answer from me right away, and I am sorry. This blog post is simply meant to be an overview. My next blog post will have cool stories and pictures and such, I promise!