{"id":145,"date":"2020-08-05T12:01:25","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T16:01:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/?p=145"},"modified":"2020-10-14T17:21:33","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T21:21:33","slug":"amphibitheater-gladiators-an-eat-or-be-eaten-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/2020\/08\/05\/amphibitheater-gladiators-an-eat-or-be-eaten-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Amphibitheater gladiators: an eat or be eaten world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Beth Carroll<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Dr. Lindsey Thurman standing at the edge of an amphibitheater in Mount Rainer National Forest, where species co-occurrence data was collected. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I think that ecology is just like a stereotypical middle\nschool lunchroom\u2013 eighth graders bully sixth graders and within each clique,\nthere is competition. Cafeteria monitors can detect the roles of each\n12-year-old, but unlike middle school, determining how wild animals interact\nwith one another is hard. It is especially hard if the animals are millimeters\nin length and spend most of their life burrowed under logs & leaves. These\nanimals are salamanders and frogs, specifically those in Mount Rainier National\nPark, Washington. They emerge from the ground and conglomerate at isolated,\nmountainous pools of snowmelt once a year in order to breed; this is when they\nare considered \u201ceasiest\u201d to find. Determining how these frogs and salamanders\ncompete and predate on one another is imperative for modeling how these\nsensitive communities will react to a changing climate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our story starts with two scientists who shared a mutual\ncuriosity about the secret lives of animals \u2013 how species interact when people\nare not around and how these interactions shape each species\u2019 footprint on the\nlandscape. Drs. Lindsey Thurman and Allison Barner met early in their PhD\nprograms at a workshop organized to bring budding scientists from different\nuniversities, programs, and disciplines together to tackle the big questions in\nbiodiversity science. They started their collaboration on a marine biodiversity\nproject, something Dr. Thurman, an amphibian ecologist by trade, describes as\n\u201cway outside of my wheelhouse\u201d. After completing that project, the two intrepid\nresearchers banded together once again; this time Dr. Barner, who studies seashore\ntide pools, was out of her wheelhouse. The two met biweekly \u2013 if not weekly \u2013\nfor the next four years, immersing themselves in conversations about ecology,\nanimal behavior and interaction, and how to properly describe these\ninteractions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Typically, most amphibian behavior studies are done in a\ncontrolled lab setting. The argument is that researchers may not be able to\nwitness certain behaviors when visiting amphibians on their own turf. The\namphibians are incredibly elusive \u2013 similar finding a needle in a haystack, if\nthe haystack was liquid and the needle can run away. In the laboratory-based\nstudies, \u201cyou collect eggs or larvae and you bring them into a controlled\nsetting, and you take data on them as they\u2019re swimming around in an aquarium,\u201d describes\nDr. Thurman. This methodology similar to going to Shamu\u2019s tank at SeaWorld in\norder to study orcas \u2013 when animals are removed from the wild and put in a tank,\ntheir natural behavior may change and make interpretation of observations challenging.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, Dr. Thurman commenced her seasons in the field, hiking\nto these remote breeding grounds in Mount Rainier National Park. She systematically\ndetermined who was present in the arena, then used these data to see if the\nmodels could accurately predict how each species is interacting. As it turns\nout, the models are not very good at their jobs due to the dynamism of\ninteractions that predator-prey species have \u2013 one is constantly attempting to\navoid the other. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
The notorious top predator in the amphibitheaters: the rough-skinned newt, seen here in amplexus, the mating position. Photo by Lindsey Thurman.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

TL;DR<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Models that conservation biologists have been using to infer\ncompetitive and predator-prey interactions from their footprint on the\nlandscape have historically been fairly inaccurate. These models are imperative\nfor understanding how a species may respond to climate change \u2013 as temperatures\nchange, home ranges may too. Scientists currently believe that these climate\nchange-caused range shifts are mediated by species interactions, thus\nnecessitating the ability to quantify these interactions. In other words, if we\ndon\u2019t know how organisms interact with each other, we will not know where they\nmay move in response to a warming climate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additionally, these models are used by conservation\nbiologists to determine how to best manage an ecosystem in the face of climate\nchange, shaping how all people interact with the land. Inaccurate species\ninteraction models can be dangerous; wildlife and land managers are unable to\nmake educated decisions when their estimations are inaccurate. However, there\u2019s\nstill use to this data \u2013 a poor model is better than no model; continued\nassessment of species interaction is indispensable for improving such models. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CAUTIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This study assumes that each pond is a closed community, and\neach frog or salamander stays in their original pond. According to Dr. Thurman,\nthat assumption likely isn\u2019t true. \u201cwe know that\u2019s not necessarily the case,\nthese animals do metamorphose and disperse, some up to five kilometers.\u201d These\norganisms are constantly interacting across space and time \u2013 it is not\nrestricted to just one moment at one pond. Dr. Thurman notes that \u201cwhen you\u2019re\njust using snapshots of their presence and absence at one location at one time\npoint, it creates a lot of uncertainty within these network models.\u201d In other\nwords, I\u2019ve never watched James Cameron\u2019s \u201cTitanic\u201d, but I\u2019ve watched the\ntrailer and seen the memes: a few snapshots of the whole. I have a basic\nunderstanding of Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet\u2019s love, but a lot of\ndetail, nuance, and connections are overlooked with this methodology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the researchers analyzed competitive and predator-prey\ninteractions at increasing spatial scales, which helped reveal some bias. This\nshows that when thinking about species interactions, scale matters. Nuances in\npredator-prey and competitive interactions can be blurred if zoomed too far in\nor lost in the details if viewed too widely. Similar to many things in life,\nthe picture gets clearer when you take a few steps back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHAT\u2019S NEXT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a changing climate and global system, it is imperative to\nknow how natural communities\u2019 function. These models are what conservation\nmanagers use to make decisions. If populations shift as a result of climate\nchange, managers must know the intricacies of the daily amphibian duels in\norder to preserve their population numbers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If these amphibians are lost from the ecosystem, it could\nlead to a collapse of the ecosystem \u2013 similar to removing the middle of a Jenga\ntower, reducing structural integrity. The bottom of the tower \u2013 the algae and\nplant matter the larval amphibians graze on \u2013 become more stable and are able\nto proliferate without predation. The top of the tower \u2013 the birds, snakes, and\nfishes who ate the amphibians \u2013 fall apart due to a lack of food. Unlike Jenga,\necosystems are much harder to reassemble. Accurate population models are\nvitally important for preventing this Jenga tower from collapsing, especially\nwhen protecting the ecosystem from the harms of climate change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

WHERE TO FIND IT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thurman, L.L., A. K. Barner, T. S. Garcia, T. Chestnut.\n(2019). Testing the link between species interactions and species co-occurrence\nin a trophic network. Ecography, 42, 1658-1670.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PHOTO CITATIONS<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thurman, Lindsay. Personally taken photographs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Beth Carroll I think that ecology is just like a stereotypical middle school lunchroom\u2013 eighth graders bully sixth graders and within each clique, there is competition. Cafeteria monitors can detect the roles of each 12-year-old, but unlike middle school, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6012,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[643422],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-herpetology-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6012"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions\/377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}