system will reveal not only the causes of malformations, but also how these malformations affect these frogs if they are to survive to reproductive age (Fig. 8, 9, 10). Over the past ten months we have begun noticing greater incidence of fly attacks on the foam nests of P. cruciger. So far, we have observed nearly 15 foam nests of these frogs, of which five were infected with fly larvae. These larvae often destroy entire nests or sometimes tadpole survival is dramatically reduced. There seems to be a correlation with the advent of rain and fly infections; we continue in gathering more data to test this
Fig. 11. Pseudophilautus femoralis is one of a very few species that lay direct developing eggs on leaves. Photo: Madhava Meegaskumbura.
the conservation effort, by understanding the critical conditions needed for their breeding and factors needed for survival of various life history stages. Function of foam nest material We are studying how foam-nesting material may facilitate the survival of eggs and early stage tadpoles within the foamy mass in both Polypedates and Taruga. We are now beginning to test chemical composition and protein structure of the material that the foam nests are made with. We are finding that the blue color observed in P. cruciger nests is due to Cu2+ ions. We are also testing the anti-fungal and anti-bacterial nature of the foam nest material.
Fig. 8. (top left) A severely malformed P. cruciger tadpole swimming upside down, Fig. 9. (top right) Malformed froglet of P. cruciger ready to metamorphose. Photo: Madhava Meegaskumbura. Fig. 10. (bottom) A. Deformed urostyle region of a double stained froglet and B. the normal condition. Photo: Gayan Bowatte.
hypothesis statistically. Surprisingly, we are not noticing fly larvae attacks in nearly 15 Taruga eques nests that we observed; however we are not sure if this is due to the absence of the fly species under issue in T. eques habitat or if these nests are tolerant of these fly attacks.
Amphibian microhabitat monitoring Shrub frogs are restricted largely to the rain-forested southwestern ‘wet-zone’ region of the island, where annual precipitation usually exceeds 2000 mm (only a single species is restricted to the dry zone). Many of these frogs are specialized in habitat use (Meegaskumbura and Manamedra-Arachchi 2005; Meegaskumbura, PhD thesis work). Of the 43 extant species, it is of concern that as many as 15 are known only from a single site each, and 11 from only two—usually nearby—sites each (Manamendra-Arachchi and Pethiyagoda 2005; Meegaskumbura and Manamendra-Arachchi 2005). Since 1815, about 95% of Sri Lanka’s rainforests have been lost to coffee, cinchona and tea plantations (Meyer 1998), supporting the idea that extinctions are mainly caused by habitat loss.
We also suspect that recent climatic changes may also have served to stress the shrub-frog populations. Bahir et al. (2005) show for several highland species, that breeding only occurs during periods of sustained rainfall that is reflected by continuously high relative humidity (80-100 %). While historical relative-humidity data are lacking for Sri Lanka, trends calculated by Schaefer (1998) show that at Nuwara Eliya (1,800 m elevation) in central mountains, average annual Amphibian breeding observations temperature had increased by 1.3° C We are now observing the breeding and average annual precipitation had patterns of various frog species (Fig. 11). decreased by ~20 % in the period 1869We are concentrating on the endemic 1995; similar desiccation and warming forms in the wild, and later when we get trends were noted also in other parts of government permission, we are hoping the country. to also do captive breeding trials, not Fig. 12. Measuring microhabitat parameters in the field. Photo: Madhava Meegaskumbura. for reintroduction, but to fine tune We also continue to swab the amphibians to determine the presence of the dreaded Chytrid fungus, which if spread in Sri Lanka could potentially cause havoc as has been observed in many regions of the world. Studies done on Sri Lankan frogs so far indicate that the fungus is probably present in Sri Lankan frog populations, mandating urgent continuation of monitoring activities.
28 | FrogLog Vol. 98 | September 2011