Frog watch after fires
The tragic human impact of Victoria's devasting bushfires in February this year, has been well-documented. But scientist are only beginning to uncover the effects on the area's biodiversity.
With the recents of good rains and the onset of a late-winter frog breeding season, a team of experts headed by Dr Jane Melville, Museum Victoria's senior curator of terrestrial vertebrates, has begun a study of frogs in dams on properties destroyed by fires.
They've been studying populations of common brown tadlets and brown tree frogs in the area for the past three years and will now investigate how the fires have affected numbers of these common species as well as the reproductive cycles.
"If they are badly affected, the species that are of conservation concern are probably going to have fared particularly badly," said Dr Melville.
Frogs are also useful as general biological indicators, meaning that information gained from the study should provide important clues to wider ecological impact of the fires.
The Age Education Resource Centre, in partnership with Museum Victoria
http://www.education.theage.com.au/featurepage.asp?intid=6
Museum Victoria's Discovery Centre