The process of recording a single male frog's call can be a long one. It is . You must A) hear calling frogs; B) locate a single frog, which can be really tough; C) sneak up and stick a microphone in front of its face; D) wait for it to call 20 times in a row, which requires lots of patience; and E) catch and bag the little dude. With two sets of recording equipment between three people we knocked out a lot of recordings on the good nights (20 recordings). When a frog or a group of frogs got quiet we utilized a couple methods for getting them going again. First, one of us would don this big frog suit, hop around on all fours and... just kidding. We had recordings of frog choruses on our phones, which we played on loop for several minutes, or until the frogs in front of us felt compelled to join in. When that failed to work we pulled out the big guns: We sang our own calls. Yes, you read that correctly. I spent an upwards of 20 minutes straight attempting to make frog vocalizations. And it worked, sometimes! My frogging ego hit an all-time high the first time I fooled a frog into thinking I was its buddy. So anyway, that is what I was up to most recently. Weird, right?
We did this work at a ton of localities throughout northern Mississippi, northeastern Tennessee, and southeastern/central Kentucky. It was a marathon of driving, camping, and frog recording! Similarly, writing about it in much detail would be a time-consuming activity, and I honestly lack the motivation to throw such a tome together. With that in mind, here is a bulleted summary of our travels in March:
- Tallahassee to Oxford, Mississippi
- It snowed
- Slept at a farm full of dogs, goats, turkeys, and peacocks. Turkeys and peacocks do not get along.
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| Battle scene |
- Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, and FINALLY saw the Mississippi River in all its muddy glory
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| The Big Muddy (Arkansas is on the left) |
- Appalachian stuff (salamanders, topography, food desert, etc.)
- Around 4PM most men answered the front door shirtless, but they didn't mind people catching frogs in the ditch out front. In fact, they had a nice big pond out back by the abandoned school bus, if we're game for an adventure. Maybe next time.
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| I will stick to the ditch. #notinyourbackyard |
- American Toads do a lot of wrestling when they are frisky
- Named an American Toad Cheddar Bo' to honor the sandwich served at Bojangles
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| They loved us too |
- Dissecting frogs outside is awful
- Hardee's (East Coast Carl's Jr) in Williamsburg, Kentucky was our Wifi haven
- I ate at a White Castle for the first time
- Terrifying truck problems happened, then magically disappeared
- Tons of driving but no frogs
- Streamside Salamanders!!!
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| So fat and great! |
- Mammoth Cave National Park, woot woot!
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| This cave cricket is the best picture I got at Mammoth Cave, sorry! |
- Drove back to Tallahassee after another successful field season :)
As you can see, we covered a LOT of ground. The primary goal in Tennessee and Kentucky was to find sites where both Pseudacris feriarum and Pseudacris brachyphona (Mountain Chorus Frog) were present. The hope is to understand how P. brachyphona is affecting our P. feriarum friends in areas of sympatry (co-occurrence). P. brachyphona has a short and rapid mating call when compared to P. feriarum. My boss, Dr. Lemmon, hypothesizes that the P. feriarum in such areas have slowed down their call as an evolutionary response. Fewer hybrids (hybrids are usually maladaptive) will occur if they differentiate their calls in this way. Out in the field we managed to record quite a few frogs, including a few hybrids! Their calls sounded intermediate between the two species, which made them stand out, even in a larger choruses. Recording and catching them was difficult, but very rewarding!
With the field season finally over it is difficult to even remember all the events that transpired. We did not take very many days off in the month of March (frogs do not take days off). When I was not driving, recording, catching, or dissecting frogs I was looking up places to stay, staring at maps, tracking the budget, and backing up all of the frog calls we recorded to DropBox. It was crazy, but I can look back on it with a great sense of accomplishment. We got so much done! I could not be more proud of my hardworking crewmates, Alyssa and John! They maintained sanity and humor during some tiring times. And even better, they worked really hard, often doing things without me asking. Job well done, guys!
John is now back in New York to finish up his Master's degree at Hofstra, shoot some birds at the airport, and prepare for his PhD research on striped skunks at the University of Southern Illinois in Carbondale. Alyssa is back in Tallahassee to continue her work as a lab technician for the Lemmon Lab, along with some volunteering for the Rokyta Lab, which does lots of research on snake venom!
As for me, I am back in Tallahassee twiddling my thumbs. Okay, not really. I actually have a lot going on, from post-field season checklists to learning new lab skills. I am also in the process of applying for a work visa... for ECUADOR! I will be working as a field assistant for Dr. Santiago Ron of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE). My tentative start date is early May! I will talk about this some more in a different post, but obviously this is an exciting opportunity for me. Hopefully I can get the work visa stuff settled next week. I need to buy my plane ticket soon!
As it is the end of the field season I want to express my gratitude to those that contributed to our success. First, a huge thank you to Dr. Emily Lemmon for taking me back for another go-around with the Pseudacris project! I also want to thank the many members of the Lemmon Lab for being a good group to come home to every so often. Finally, another huge thank you to my two field crew buddies. You guys were awesome this winter!
Thank you for taking a glance at my blog. I apologize if the quality of my writing has gone down. I am way too busy playing basketball and thinking about Ecuador to write well.
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| Special thanks to all the Pseudacris out there too! |
