By Margaret Maccoll
Bushfires should be added to the list of long-term threats facing Australia’s frog species, according to a USC researcher involved in a seven-year study of the frogs’ ecological and genetic diversity.
University of Sunshine Coast lecturer in animal ecology Dr Dominque Potvin and Museums Victoria’s senior curator in herpetology Jane Melville investigated how severe bushfire events impacted the long-term survival of frog species, and found that frogs were not as resilient as previously believed.
The research, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, focused on the Kinglake region of Victoria, which was devastated in early 2009 by the ‘Black Sunday’ bushfires.
“For two years leading up to Black Sunday, we were doing research into the ecological and genetic diversity of two common species – the brown tree frog and the Victorian tree frog – which were abundant in the tall forests of the area,” Dr Potvin said.
“We continued for another five years after the fires and assumed the frogs would survive and recover, based on previous findings using traditional ecological survey techniques.
“Genetic fingerprinting techniques, however, produced a very different story on their resilience, and painted a gloomy future for our already dwindling frog species.”
They found that both species were significantly more inbred after the fires, and there were dramatic declines in their ability to breed and sustain themselves long-term.
“There is evidence that increasing bushfire frequency adds to the multitude of compounding extinction risks for frogs, that include climate change, land fragmentation, habitat loss and disease,” Dr Potvin said.
