Climate change can affect frog evolution

Justin Touchon, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, found that climate change could change the evolution of frogs.

Most of the more than 6,000 frogs in the world lay eggs in the water, but tropical frogs do not. This behavior helps protect their eggs from predators such as fish and tadpoles, but also increases the risk of their eggs drying out.

Touchon conducted analysis of long-term data on the Panama Canal rainfall, he discovered that the rainfall in this area changes as the climate change prediction model.

"In the past four decades, rainfall has decreased during the rainy season, the number of rainy days has decreased and the distance between storms has increased ," Touchon said.

Pantless treefrog eggs are easy to dry. Their embryos will die within a day when there is no rain. Heavy rain stimulates reproduction, so when the storms become scattered, the possibility of rain within a day for frogs to lay eggs down.

When the weather pattern changes, the advantage of not spawning under water decreases, not only for tree frogs, but also for many species.'Tree frogs can switch to laying eggs in water or on leaves, so they can overcome the changes in precipitation better than other species that have lost the ability to lay eggs under water , ' Touchon said. 'Flexibility in spawning places will give tree frogs more options to allow them to decide on their habitat that will increase their offspring' survival.