4. How do annual climate patterns affect adult frogs?
Cascades frogs live in a harsh environment, in which they can spend up to nine months buried in the snow followed by a short, hot growing season to breed, grow, and prepare for the next winter. Over hundreds of years these frogs have developed adaptations to survive in this environment, however climate change threatens to disrupt their cues for breeding and hibernation. We are using a long-term dataset in which we’ve marked individual frogs over the course of 13 years and tracked them through time, to determine how annual survival and body condition correlate with different climate variables, such as monthly snowpack, growing season length, precipitation, and temperature (among others).
3. Can Cascades frog tadpoles speed up development to escape a drying pond?
We know that some frog species can actually speed up their growth if they sense danger in their environment (too many predators, too little food, or too little water), but we don’t know if Cascades frogs have this mechanism. We are visiting ponds with tadpoles throughout the summer and photographing tadpoles. We can then analyze growth and development patterns of these photos, coupled with data on the size and depth of the ponds from which they came, to see if tadpoles can speed up their development to escape drying.
2. How much tadpole mortality occurs because of pond-drying?
The time span in which the ponds at our sites hold water ranges from a few weeks, to months, to years. We are monitoring these ponds on a yearly basis to see how many and how frequently ponds dry before tadpoles can metamorphose into frogs and escape certain death.
Our Study
1. How do Cascades frogs use ponds for breeding?
Cascades frogs live in beautiful sub-alpine landscapes pocked with tiny ponds and larger lakes. We are studying when and where the frogs lay their eggs and how climate change might affect this. Each year, we survey the ponds just as the snow melts and count and measure every egg mass to determine if the frogs are using the same ponds for breeding year after year in the same proportions.
We are collecting field data on Cascades frog populations in Olympic and Mt. Rainier national parks. Here’s a little bit about the questions we are asking and how we are trying to answer them:
