{"id":261,"date":"2020-08-05T11:52:13","date_gmt":"2020-08-05T15:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/?p=261"},"modified":"2020-08-05T11:52:13","modified_gmt":"2020-08-05T15:52:13","slug":"pesticides-for-breakfast-a-call-for-more-information-surrounding-the-impacts-of-pesticides-on-vermont-amphibians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/2020\/08\/05\/pesticides-for-breakfast-a-call-for-more-information-surrounding-the-impacts-of-pesticides-on-vermont-amphibians\/","title":{"rendered":"Pesticides for breakfast: a call for more information surrounding the impacts of pesticides on Vermont amphibians"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Juniper Nardiello Smith<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Photo from alibaba.com<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Imagine you are a 0.002-pound frog burrowed in the mud on the edge of a forested pond with the exact coloration of the dead leaves that litter the ground around you. Now imagine that you notice fewer and fewer of your fellow species members around you, your population is decreasing. Global warming is changing the composition of your habitat. Your skin is too hot. Invasive plant species are taking over the landscape and making it harder and harder to find food. Pesticides sprayed on crop fields make you sick. Loud machinery breaks your habitat into many pieces as roads wind through the once whole landscape and buildings scatter the land. You find yourself risking your life to cross these roads. These obstacles are sadly the reality that amphibians, such as the little frog you imagined, toads, and salamanders face every day as their natural habitats are altered by humans. These are also some of the primary factors that contribute to making amphibians one of the most critically threatened group of organisms on the planet. Their small size, cryptic coloration, and varied habitat use make it hard to notice and understand, without really searching, how these factors are affecting amphibians. Because of this, I am taking this time to advocate for these organisms that often go unnoticed by discussing an eye-opening study that hits close to home. Unfortunately, here in Vermont, where there are more cows than people and corn fields seem to stretch out towards the mountains as far as the eye can see, we might be posing a bigger threat to these little guys than we realize. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Eye-Opening Study<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Farming, something deeply rooted in the history and culture of Vermont, has been found to facilitate in a decline of amphibian survival. An article titled \u201cPesticides in the Real World: The Consequences of GMO-Based Intensive Agriculture on Native Amphibians\u201d published earlier this year outlines a study conducted in South America to test how different pesticides used in agriculture affect amphibian survival. The motivation behind this study was due to the fact that the use of pesticides on agricultural fields has been suggested as a top driver of the amphibian decline we are seeing globally. Because our population continues to grow, so does our food demand. This will likely make it so GMOs and agriculture will only intensify resulting in an increase in pesticide use. To test these impacts researchers studied 71 ponds adjacent to agricultural fields that were likely to contain pesticides. Four species were selected to observe based on the knowledge that they tend to have their breeding sites in ponds found in agricultural fields. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Within each pond, mesh enclosures, like the ones pictured above, were built to hold tadpoles found within that pond for observation. Farmers determined the combinations of pesticides used to spray on their individual fields to meet the requirements of their crops. The researchers surveyed the tadpoles three times to determine how well they could move and their survival, 24 hours before pesticides, 24 hours after pesticides, and 48 hours after pesticides (Agostini et al., 2020). I wish I could say the frogs that involuntarily found themselves in this experiment were alright, but that would be far from the truth. The results from this study bring up a conflict in Vermont involving the continued use of pesticides found to be harmful in this study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Conflict<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/strong>With the exception of one, all of the\npesticides used in this study are currently still being used in Vermont.\nFortunately, the one pesticide banned in Vermont, endosulfan, was found to be\nthe most toxic to frogs in this study. However, combinations of other\npesticides like chlorpyrifos and glyphosate reduced survival to 1.8% and\ncombinations of cypermethrin and glyphosate reduced survival to 10.5% after 48\nhours. Glyphosate, known commonly as Roundup, is highly used in Vermont to the\npoint where its use has almost doubled in the past decade. Glyphosate did not\nsignificantly reduce survival on its own but was found, along with all the\nother pesticides, to have significant negative effects on mobility. The effects\nof these pesticides on survival were so extreme that mobility could not be\nmeasured after 48 hours in all of the ponds due to the low number of surviving\ntadpoles. Although Vermont is a very different place than South America and\ncontains different amphibians, all of them share the unique trait of highly\nsensitive skin. We also share the use of many of the same pesticides all of\nwhich have the same chance of showering down on a cattle pond or washing away\nwith the rain into a nearby body of water. Here in Vermont, the pesticides have\nthe same ability to coat the skin of frogs, covering their habitat, their food,\nproviding young frogs with pesticides for breakfast. Despite these similarities\na study conducted in South America cannot provide us with the data we need to\nmake a change here in Vermont. A study must be conducted on our own\nsweet-smelling manure covered fields. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why Does this Matter?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          Before I can convince\nyou that a study must be done in Vermont to gain a better understanding of the\nimpacts of our pesticide use on frogs and other amphibians, it is important to\nunderstand why they matter and why they are worth conserving. Currently 41% of\nall amphibian species are experiencing threatening populations levels. To put\nthis into context only 12% of birds and 24% of all mammals are threatened.\nFocusing on amphibian conservation is very crucial right now as these small\nanimals are experiencing a rapid decrease in biodiversity. However, conserving\namphibians isn\u2019t just in the best interest of all the frogs, toads, and\nsalamanders out there. There is also some incentive for us to conserve\namphibians because they provide us with several services. Most notable is their\nrole as bioindicators. A term that they acquired because their sensitive skin\nmakes them more susceptible to diseases, indicating to scientists\u2019 locations\nthat contain negative environmental factors. Amphibians also pose an important\nrole in their food chain as they are food to larger prey and they eat many\ninsects. These feeding habits maintain mosquito populations helping to reduce\nthe spread of illnesses like malaria and regulate the populations of crop\ndestroying insects. Amphibians in their aquatic stage also feed on algae which\nhelps to keep our waters clear and clean. Among other services being studied,\namphibians have the potential to help combat climate change and treat diseases\nlike Alzheimer\u2019s and cancer through the particular chemical compositions found\non their skin (Rosenberg, 2019). If we don\u2019t begin advocating for amphibians,\nwe may miss out on our chance to help them and in turn never know how much they\nreally could have helped us. As much as amphibians need us right now, we need\nthem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moving Forward<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

          <\/strong>If you\u2019ve fallowed me this far it should be\napparent that amphibians are in need of a fair amount of TLC. In a state where\nwe heavily participate in an activity that is known to be a top driver of\namphibian decline, reducing our impacts on such threatened species should be a\ntop priority. The results from the study done in South America are disturbing\nand have pushed me to advocate for a study to be conducted in Vermont to test\nhow our state\u2019s top used pesticides are interfering with amphibian survival in\nour ponds and waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is required\nto evaluate environmental risks such as risks to wildlife and threatened\nspecies when reviewing pesticides (US EPA, 2013). However, these risks cannot\nbe assessed if data has not been collected on them. The issue of rapid\namphibian decline, and the impacts of increasing pesticide use as a growing\npopulation demands more food is an issue that can’t change unless awareness,\nadvocacy, and action are brought to the table. These 0.002 pound, borderline\ninvisible, amphibians desperately need a voice to stick up for them. We all\nhave the power to be this voice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Literature Cited <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Agostini, M. G., Roesler, I.,\nBonetto, C., Ronco, A. E., & Bilenca, D. (2020). Pesticides in the real\nworld: The consequences of GMO-based intensive agriculture on native\namphibians. Biological Conservation<\/em>, 241<\/em>. <\/a>https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1016\/j.biocon.2019.108355<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rosenberg, C. (2019). Why the loss of amphibians matters<\/em>. MNN. <\/a>https:\/\/www.mnn.com\/earth-matters\/animals\/stories\/why-loss-amphibians-matters<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

US EPA. (2013). About Pesticide Registration<\/em> [Overviews\nand Factsheets]. US EPA. <\/a>https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/pesticide-registration\/about-pesticide-registration<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo one: https:\/\/hnyingshun.en.alibaba.com\/product\/60072219721-220635384\/300_liter_orchard_fertilizer_farm_pesticide_tractor_sprayers_pump_for_sale.html<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo two: Yagi, K. T., & Green, D. M.\n(2016). Mechanisms of Density-dependent Growth\nand Survival in Tadpoles of Fowler\u2019s Toad, Anaxyrus fowleri: Volume vs.                  Abundance. Copeia<\/em>, 104<\/em>(4),\n942\u2013951.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Juniper Nardiello Smith Imagine you are a 0.002-pound frog burrowed in the mud on the edge of a forested pond with the exact coloration of the dead leaves that litter the ground around you. Now imagine that you notice … 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-261","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\/261","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=261"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":297,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261\/revisions\/297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.uvm.edu\/bmosher1-fieldherp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}