One of the most perplexing phenomena in recent ecological research has been the apparent increase in the incidence of deformities among frogs in the United States. A large number of deformities have been documented in the Upper Great Lakes states of Minnesota and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, most of Michigan's Upper Peninsula has not been surveyed, and the malformation status of the state's amphibian resources remains unknown. At Tech Tea Time on Wednesday, April 26, Joan Chadde, education program coordinator for the Center for Science and Environmental Research, and Kristan Schuster, Houghton Middle School teacher, will provide an overview of the amphibian decline and malformity issue. They will describe a teacher-training project conducted by Michigan Tech with U.P. schools, the data collected, and the status of frog malformities in the Midwest and the United States. They'll also provide resources for finding out more, as well as live frogs to observe, and some fun, froggy games for the brave to participate in! Tech Tea Time is at 4 p.m. in the MTU Memorial Union Alumni Lounge and is free and open to all.
Because the Michigan DNR lacks the staff to collect basic inventory and monitoring data, Dr. David Flaspohler (forestry) and Chadde conducted a pilot study to test the feasibility of training middle and high school teachers to use their students to inventory amphibian malformations in the western Upper Peninsula. This spring the project will be expanded to the eastern U.P.
In addition to malformations, during the past decade scientists have become concerned about the alarming number of reports of amphibian populations declining or vanishing entirely. This was often a result of the direct impact of human activities in that particular area. In the mid-eighties, scientists became especially troubled because population declines were documented in wilderness areas, with little or no human disturbance.
Research into the cause of Global Amphibian Population Declines is now a very high priority for scientists all over the world. Some of the suggested causes include:
Most scientists assume that frog declines can somehow be related to humans and their increasing demands on the environment. There is also widespread concern that the deformities and population declines are a grim indicator that things are far from well in our environment and that the joyful chorus of spring peepers may soon be a thing of the past.