DIASPORIC AMPHIBIANS

A collaborative project with ANAT and University of Newcastle Australia to explore the biological, social, and evolutionary impact of frog communities that have become geographically separated and isolated.

The consequences of habitat disturbance and disease burden may be reshaping how frog communities are undergoing distinct ecological pressures and even biological differentiations that could be conceptualised as diasporic divergence.

The Green and Golden Bell Frog once abundant across the Southeastern Seaboard of Australia have dwindled due to an invasive chytrid fungus, leaving only small frog populations clininging to survival at Homebush Bay, Chullora, Kooragang Island and Broughton Islands amongst a handful of other places in NSW Australia. Working with frog researchers and analysing recent literature under Dr John Gould, and, instigated by the work of Prof. Eben Kirksey, long running frog population studies are monitoring and conceptualising industrial, aquatic and diasporic entanglements by polluted waterways. Are these isolated populations of frogs changing physically? Are the frogs becoming more colourful? Are their calls becoming unique or differentiated between populations? These encounters might give insights into the diasporic understanding, care and protection of endangered frogs.

Ironically, it is often in polluted bodies of water, especially those contaminated by leachates such as Dioxins, Agent Orange and mining run-off that has kept chytrid infestations under control, allowing endangered frogs to survive within profoundly disturbed - yet biologically functional landscapes.