HerpDigest Vol # 10 Issue # 4 2/2/10

HerpDigest.org: The Only Free Weekly Electronic Newsletter That Reports on The Latest News on Herpetological Conservation, Husbandry and Science

Volume # 10 Issue # 4 - 2/2/10

Publisher/Editor- Allen Salzberg

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Special thanks to the Neil and Renate Bernstein, Wayne & Elizabeth Friar, Bradford Norman and anonymous, (you know who you are) for putting Herpdigest on their Holiday gift list.

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THE COMPLETE NORTH AMERICAN BOX TURTLE

Carl J. Franklin, and David C. Killpack with foreword by C. Kenneth Dodd
(who wrote the now classic "Natural History of North American Box Turtles"

Just published. 260 Pages
Over 300 full color photos and illustrations.

Hardcover, Eco/Serpent' s Tales

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Not even Amazon who are offering it for $59.95.

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Table of Contents

1) Do Breeding Facilities For Chelonians Threaten Their Stability In The Wild?

2) Recovery Of Anuran Community Diversity Following Habitat Replacement

3) A Record 5,000 Sea Turtles Cold-Stunned in Florida

4) Cold Snap in Florida Affects Introduced (i.e. Burmese Pythons) and Native Herps

5) Herpetological Teaching Award Announced

6) Gecko's Lessons Transfer Well: Dry Printing Of Nanotube Patterns To Any Surface Could Revolutionize Microelectronics

7) Saving Tiny Toads Without a Home (Spray Toads, Nectophrynoides asperginis)

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"THE FROGS AND TOADS OF NORTH AMERICA" is an amazing book.

It contains:

A CD of all 101 species found in US & Canada./Almost 400 great color photos

101 color location maps /In just 344 pages.

Books this comprehensive usually go for at least $50.00.to &75.00. Or just $19.95 for the CD. But the publisher is offering it JUST FOR $19.95 Plus 7.50 S&H.(See below on how to order)

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1) Do Breeding Facilities For Chelonians Threaten Their Stability In The Wild?

Vinke, T. & S. Vinke (2010):- Schildkroeten im Fokus online 1:1-18.

Abstract

After a short introduction into the aims of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), and the definition of the different breeding categories used by CITES ("captive bred", "captive born" or "farmed", and "captive raised" or "ranched"), we present and evaluate import and export statistics of different species and countries. These show many cases of Incorrect and inconsequent data, in some cases chelonians are mislabelled, or they entry into a country as "wild caught" and leave it as "captive bred." Typical trading routes are named. We address the limits of CITES and show possibilities of the importing countries to improve the conservation status, i.e. by double-checking non-detriment findings, like it's imperative by each import into the European Union.

Paper availabl in pdf at http://www.schildkroeten-im-fokus.de/pdf/2010tradestudy.pdf

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2) Recovery Of Anuran Community Diversity Following Habitat Replacement

Journal of Applied Ecology

Volume 47 Issue 1, Pages 148 - 156 - Published Online: 30 Dec 2009

David Lesbarrères 1,3*, Mike S. Fowler 2?, Alain Pagano 3 and Thierry Lodé 3?

1 Department of Biology, Laurentian University, Sudbury, Ontario, Canada
P3E 2C6 ; 2 Integrative Ecology Unit, Department of Biological and Environmental
Sciences, University of Helsinki, PO BOX 65 (Viikinkaari 1), Helsinki, FI-00014, Finland ; and 3 Laboratoire d'études environnementales des systèmes anthropisés, Université d'Angers Belle-Beille, F-49045 Angers cedex, France

*Correspondence author. E-mail: mailto:dlesbarreres%40laurentian.ca

?Present address: Institut Mediterrani d'Estudis Avançats, (UiB-CSIC), Miquel Marquès 21, 07190 Esporles, Mallorca, Spain.

?Present address: UMR-CNRS 6552, Ethologie-Evolution -Ecologie, Université de Rennes1, campus de Beaulieu, 35042 Rennes, France.

ABSTRACT

1. Recently habitat degradation, road construction and traffic have all increased with human populations, to the detriment of aquatic habitats and species. While numerous restoration programmes have been carried out, there is an urgent need to follow their success to better understand and compensate for the decline of amphibian populations. To this end, we followed the colonization success of an anuran community across multiple replacement ponds created to mitigate large-scale habitat disturbance.

2. Following construction of a highway in western France, a restoration project was initiated in 1999 and the success of restoration efforts was monitored. The amphibian communities of eight ponds were surveyed before they were destroyed. Replacement ponds were created according to precise edaphic criteria, consistent with the old pond characteristics and taking into account the amphibian species present in each. The presence of amphibian species was recorded every year during
the breeding period for 4 years following pond creation.

3. Species richness initially declined following construction of the replacement ponds
but generally returned to pre-construction levels. Species diversity followed the same pattern but took longer to reach the level of diversity recorded before construction. Pond surface area, depth and sun exposure were the most significant habitat characteristics explaining both amphibian species richness and diversity. Similarly, an increase in the number of vegetation strata was positively related to anuran species richness, indicating the need to maintain a heterogeneous landscape containing relatively large open wetland areas.

4. Synthesis and applications. We highlight the species-specific dynamics of the colonization process, including an increase in the number of replacement ponds inhabited over time by some species and, in some cases, an increase in population size. Our work suggests that successful replacement ponds can be designed around simple habitat features, providing clear benefits for a range of amphibian species,
which will have positive cascading effects on local biodiversity. However, consideration must also be given to the terrestrial buffer zone when management strategies are being planned. Finally, our study offers insight into the successful establishment of anuran communities over a relatively short time in restored or replacement aquatic environments.

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3) A Record 5,000 Sea Turtles Cold-Stunned in Florida

by Osha Gray Davidson
1/21/2010, One Earth Magazine

Frigid waters in Florida during the first two weeks in January shocked a record number of sea turtles into a coma-like state that would have killed nearly all of them -- had state and federal wildlife workers not come to the rescue.

Several officials interviewed for this article say that while it's too early to know the
precise number of "cold-stunned" turtles rescued in the event, they all estimated that the number is at least 5,000. That is an order of magnitude larger than the worst previous incident (400 turtles in 2001).

While the cold-stun event itself was a natural occurrence, the potential impact on sea
turtles -- all species are threatened or endangered -- has more to do with human activity.

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4) Cold Snap in Florida Affects Introduced (i.e. Burmese Pythons) and Native Herps

by Frank Indiviglio 's ("That Reptile Blog")
http://blogs.thatpetplace.com/thatreptileblog/

I've received a number of questions lately from herp enthusiasts (and "regular
people"!) who have come across cold-stunned reptiles and amphibians in Florida. Cuban Knight Anoles, Green Tree Frogs and many other species have been severely impacted by the record-breaking cold weather.

Burmese Pythons

A colleague's comment on cold weather and Florida's introduced Burmese Pythons brought to mind an incident that occurred several years ago. A friend of mine stopped into a coffee shop near Florida City and was surprised to see the skins of 14 large Burmese Pythons tacked to the wall.

She learned that the shop's owner had captured all along one road on a single warm morning following a cold snap. Herpetologists also know that such times are ideal for collecting, as snakes flock to roads to take advantage of the warm pavement and access to sun.

In parts of its native range, the Burmese Python actually encounters quite cool winters, and is known to hibernate. In fact, captives rarely breed unless stimulated by a cooling-off period. Florida's unusually cold weather will likely not cause many mortalities, but, as illustrated above, may render the snakes more vulnerable to people and predators.

Other Introduced Species

Successful invasive species are hardy by nature, but those from very warm habitats will suffer from exposure to low temperatures. I've had several reports of Cuban Knight Anoles that have been found alive but which remain lethargic even when warmed up. What likely happens is that the immune system becomes depressed, leaving the animal open to attack by pathogens.

Further north, conditions in winter are harsher. An introduced population of Barking Treefrogs, which normally range to Virginia, persisted in southern New Jersey for several years but died off one extra-cold winter.

Italian Wall Lizards (Podarcis sicula) are well-established in NYC and weather most winters easily, but experience high mortality during prolonged freezes.

Crocodiles and Alligators

One native animal of concern is the American Crocodile, which reaches the northernmost limits of its range in southern Florida - animals at the extreme edges of their ranges are at risk during severe weather. However, Florida's crocs have take steps to solve this problem on their own. Most of the state's population has moved into the 90+ F waters of the Turkey Point Power Plant's canals. Years ago I toured the area and was surprised to see such a large, vigorous breeding population.

Florida's other native crocodilian, the American Alligator, should be okay as well. Alligators range as far north as southern Virginia, where they inhabit lakes that sometimes become ice-bound. They utilize a very unique strategy at these times to survive, lying relatively dormant in shallow water with their snouts protruding through a hole in the ice - not what most expect of a "tropical" creature!

Other Native Species

Many natives with large ranges differ in their tolerance to the cold. For example, Green Anoles from southern Florida cannot survive the temperatures that are routinely tolerated by the same species in northern Florida. This has important conservation implications - someone who picks up an Eastern Box Turtle in North Carolina and releases in NY may be consigning it to an early demise.

Fishes on Tropical Fish Farms, native fishes and crayfishes have also expired in record numbers this year. Please check out my recent posts on Twitter for links to related articles.

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5) Herpetological Teaching Award Announced

The Herpetology Education Committee (HEC) announces the inaugural Meritorious
Teaching Award in Herpetology, sponsored by the American Society of Ichthyologists & Herpetologists, The Herpetologists, League, and the Society for the Study of
Amphibians & Reptiles. The award will be given at the annual Joint Meetings
of Ichthyologists & Herpetologists to recognize superior teaching effectiveness andmentoring of students in the area of herpetology. The award recipient will receive a cash prize of US$500, recognition in the form of an official letter from HEC, and a plaque.

To nominate an individual, please submit a letter of nomination to Cathy Bevier
(mailto:crbevier%40colby.edu) by 31 March 2010 that:

1. describes specific evidence to support the nomination (e.g., teaching modules, lab or field exercises)

2. includes names and contact information of at least two peers who are each qualified to review the merits of the nominee, and

3. includes names and contact information of two current or former students or program participants

For details on this award and the nomination procedure, please contact

Cathy Bevier

mailto:crbevier%40colby.edu

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6) Gecko's Lessons Transfer Well: Dry Printing Of Nanotube Patterns To Any Surface Could Revolutionize Microelectronics

ScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2010) - Watch a gecko walk up a wall. It defies gravity as it sticks to the surface no matter how smooth it appears to be.

What's happening isn't magic. The gecko stays put because of the electrical attraction -- the van der Waals force -- between millions of microscopic hairs on its feet and the surface.

The principle applies to new research at Rice University reported this week in the online version of the journal ACS Nano. But in this case, the hairs figuratively come off the gecko and plant themselves on the wall.

Rice graduate student Cary Pint has come up with a way to transfer forests of strongly aligned, single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) from one surface to another -- any surface -- in a matter of minutes. The template used to grow the nanotubes, with its catalyst particles still intact, can be used repeatedly to grow more nanotubes, almost like inking a rubber stamp.

Pint is primary author of the research paper, which also details a way to quickly and easily determine the range of diameters in a batch of nanotubes grown through chemical vapor deposition (CVD). Common spectroscopic techniques are poor at seeing tubes bigger than two nanometers in diameter -- or most of the nanotubes in the CVD "supergrowth" process.

"This is important since all of the properties of the nanotubes -- electrical, thermal and mechanical -- change with diameter," he said. "The best thing is that nearly every university has an FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectrometer sitting around that can do these measurements, and that should make the process of synthesis and application development from carbon nanotubes much more precise."

Pint and other students and colleagues of Robert Hauge, a Rice distinguished faculty fellow in chemistry, are also investigating ways to take printed films of SWNTs and make them all-conducting or all-semiconducting -- a process Hauge refers to as "Fermi-level engineering" for its ability to manipulate electron movement at the nanoscale.

Combined, the techniques represent a huge step toward a nearly limitless number of practical applications that include sensors, highly efficient solar panels and electronic components.

"A big frontier for the field of nanoscience is in finding ways to make what we can do on the nanoscale impact our everyday activities," Hauge said. "For the use of carbon nanotubes in devices that can change the way we do things, a straightforward and scalable way of patterning aligned carbon nanotubes over any surface and in any pattern is a major advance."

Pint said an afternoon of "experimenting with creative ideas" as a first-year graduate student turned into a project that held his interest through his time at Rice. "I realized early on it may be useful to transfer carbon nanotubes to other surfaces," he said.

"I started playing around with water vapor to clean up the amorphous carbons on the nanotubes. When I pulled out a sample, I noticed the nanotubes actually stuck to the tweezers.

"I thought to myself, 'That's really interesting ...'"

Water turns out to be the key. After growing the nanotubes, Pint etches them with a mix of hydrogen gas and water vapor, which weakens the chemical bonds between the tubes and the metal catalyst. When stamped, the nanotubes lie down and adhere, via van der Waals, to the new surface, leaving all traces of the catalyst behind.

Pint, who hopes to defend his dissertation in August, developed a steady enough hand to deposit nanotubes on a range of surfaces -- "anything I could lay my hands on" -- in patterns that could easily be replicated and certainly enhanced by industrial processes. A striking example of his work is a crisscross film of nanotubes made by stamping one set of lines onto a surface and then reusing the catalyst to grow more tubes and stamping them again over the first pattern at a 90-degree angle. The process took no more than 15 minutes.

"I'll be honest -- that was a little bit of luck, combined with the skill of having done this for a few years," he said of the miniature work of art. "But if I were in industry, I would make a machine to do this for me."

Pint believes industries will take a hard look at the technique, which he said could be scaled up easily, for embedding nanotube circuitry into electronic devices.

His own goal is to develop the process to make a range of highly efficient sensing devices. He's also investigating doping techniques that will take the guesswork out of growing metallic (conducting) or semiconducting SWNTs.

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7) Saving Tiny Toads Without a Home (Spray Toads, Nectophrynoides asperginis)

By Cornelia Dean, NY Times 2/210

This is a story about a waterfall, the World Bank and 4,000 homeless toads.

Maybe the story will have a happy ending, and the bright-golden spray toads, each so small it could easily sit on a dime, will return to the African gorge where they once lived, in the spray of a waterfall on the Kihansi River in Tanzania.

The river is dammed now, courtesy of the bank. The waterfall is 10 percent of what it was. And the toads are now extinct in the wild.

But 4,000 of them live in the Bronx and Toledo, Ohio, where scientists at the Wildlife Conservation Society and the Toledo Zoo are keeping them alive in hopes, somehow, of returning them to the wild. This month, the Bronx Zoo will formally open a small exhibit displaying the toads in its Reptile House.

Meanwhile, though, the toads embody the larger conflicts between conservation and economic development and the complexity of trying to preserve and restore endangered species to the wild. Their story also raises questions about how much effort should go to save any one species.

These issues are particularly pressing for frogs, toads and other amphibians, whose populations are plunging worldwide in the face of factors like habitat loss, climate change and disease. Jennifer B. Pramuk, the curator of herpetology at the Bronx Zoo. said at least 120 species vanished in recent years.

"It's probably much higher than that," said Dr. Pramuk, a leader in the toad effort. "There are areas of South America where all the amphibious fauna are wiped out."

The spray toads, Nectophrynoides asperginis, were unknown to science until 1998, when they were found living on less than five acres, perhaps the smallest known range of any vertebrate. They are unusual in that they do not lay eggs. The baby toads emerge fully formed, each one small enough to fit on the head of a pin.

When the toads were first described, as many as 20,000 lived in the misty waterfall tract on the Kihansi, climbing mossy plants and feeding on small insects. But the government of Tanzania, with a loan from the World Bank, was already planning a dam upstream.

When the dam opened in 2000, the flow of water to the dam fell by 90 percent, and mist-dependent native plants gave way to invasive species. Within months, the toad population plummeted. When the survivors contracted a fungal disease called chytrid, the toad population fell again.

The species was in imminent danger of disappearing. So the conservation society responded by sending in Jason Serle, a wild-animal keeper at the time, and Tim Davenport, a field programs director in Tanzania. Along with Tanzanian scientists and conservation officials, they spent a day at the gorge, collecting 499 toads and putting them in plastic bags with damp moss. The bags were placed into coolers for the flight back to the Bronx.

"It was get on the plane, collect them, get back," said Jim Breheny, the director of the Bronx Zoo.

The problem then was how to keep them alive. The Bronx Zoo sent toads to five other zoos in the United States, but only one of them, the Toledo Zoo, managed to keep them alive, as did the Bronx Zoo.

"No one had kept anything in that genus in captivity," Dr. Pramuk said. "It was very difficult for us to figure out what they needed."

The crucial factors, not surprisingly, turned out to be water, light and food - very carefully prepared water, light and food.

Jason Wagner, a life-support specialist at the Bronx Zoo, assembled a system of tanks, pipes, filters, aerating vats and other equipment in the warm damp behind the scenes in the reptile house. The system produces 1,500 gallons a day of pure mist to be sprayed into the toad tanks. The system is necessary because the treatments that help make city water safe for people would be lethal for the toads.

Halogen bulbs provided the best light; the Toledo Zoo figured that out. And Alyssa Borek, a zookeeper in the Bronx, produced a safe food supply by breeding tiny bugs like fruit flies, wood lice and weevils in plastic shoeboxes and other containers filled with cocoa matting, beans and alder leaves that she gathers on the zoo grounds.

Ms. Borek raises the insects for several generations to make sure they are disease-free before she feeds them to the toads, who, except for the 60 or so on exhibit, live in 26 aquarium tanks in two clean rooms at the zoo. Even so, she said, an outbreak of chytrid in one of her tanks killed half of that population within days. The rest died in less than a week, she said, "even with aggressive treatment by our veterinary staff." She still does not know how the disease erupted.

Ms. Borek also called in zoo vets to perform a "C-section" when a pregnant toad died. The babies, delivered from their dead mother's eggs, were born as tadpoles. Ms. Borek kept them in petri dishes, but after a few weeks they too had died.

The overall effort, however, was a success. By trial and error, the zoos kept the spray toads alive.

Ms. Borek learned so much that she wrote a husbandry guide for the species; Dr. Pramuk said it would be useful for anyone raising frogs or toads. In fact, working with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, the Bronx and Toledo Zoos will offer their third course on toad husbandry at the Toledo Zoo in April.

As the effort of raising the toads in the zoos progressed, their numbers in Tanzania declined until last November, when the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which maintains listings of endangered species worldwide, declared the toad extinct in the wild.

That finding presented the next hurdle: reintroducing the toads to the wild.

There is "at least the potential for a viable restoration program," Mr. Breheny, the Bronx Zoo director, said, but a lot depends on conditions and the operation of the dam. The World Bank has established an artificial mist system there, and workers have dug out invasive plants, but it is unknown whether these efforts will be enough.

The scientists said they did not blame the dam-builders for all this trouble. "Tanzania is a real poor country and they needed a source of electricity, " Dr. Pramuk said. "When people weighed their options, it was for them an easy decision."

Nonetheless, Dr. Pramuk is not troubled by the money spent to preserve the toad - "I'm guessing it's in the millions," she said.

"Either you lose the species or you do something about it," she said.

Dr. Pramuk said efforts to breed other amphibians in captivity and reintroduce them had met with some success, with 13 of 21 species reintroduced into the wild breeding for multiple generations. Of the rest, five showed some breeding, and three have at least survived after being released.

So the rescue work proceeds. The toads destined for Tanzania must be screened, to make sure they will not bring alien pathogens with them. Meanwhile, scientists at the zoos and the University of Dar es Salaam are developing ways to keep the reintroduced toads in pens in the gorge to track their mortality and monitor their reaction to their new environment.

Dr. Pramuk said researchers would gather in Tanzania later this month to develop guidelines for this work with colleagues at the University of Dar es Salaam and the Sokoine University of Agriculture. And Mr. Breheny said that if all went well, the conservation society would begin returning the spray toads to their Tanzanian home this year.

The society will use knowledge gained in the process in efforts to sustain threatened amphibians elsewhere. "Amphibians tend to be small, they produce a lot of offspring and generally have a short generation time," Mr. Breheny said. "We can raise them in small spaces and get numbers up and consider restoration if the environment is safe for them."

But they do not want to move too fast. "We don't want to lose it on the last leg of the journey," he said.

Mr. Breheny conceded that given the small number of spray toads, their minuscule range and their extreme vulnerability to environmental disturbance, it was possible that the researchers might one day have to conclude that returning them to the wild was impossible. Then they would have to evaluate the merits of continuing to keep them alive at all.

"We have talked about it," he said. "What would be the point of maintaining these toads if there was no hope of restoring them to the wild? We don't know if you would maintain them in that situation. But right now...."

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Still available:

AMPHIBIAN ECOLOGY AND CONSERVATION: A HANDBOOK OF TECHNIQUES (TECHNIQUES IN ECOLOGY & CONSERVATION) (Paperback) by C. Kenneth Dodd
Jr. (Editor) 556 pages, USA, Oxford Univ. Press. Available. $59.95 plus $7.50 S&H LIMITED NUMBER AUTOGRAPHED COPIES, By editor Kenneth Dodd

Table of Contents Available, Chapter one available, free at
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"TURTLES: THE ANIMAL ANSWER GUIDE." By Whit Gibbons and Judy Greene
of the Savannah
River Ecology Lab. © 2009 176 pages, 35 color photos, 64 halftones,
Paperback., 7" x 11"-$24.95 PLUS $6.00 S&H

THE TURTLES OF U.S. & CANADA by Carl Ernst and Jeffrey Lovich, 2009, 840 pp.
240 color photos, 11 line drawings, 52 maps, 8 ½" X 11
List price $95.00, Only 2 Autographed copies left for sale at $85.00
($11.00 for S&H sent media mail, delivery confirmation, It's an 8 plus pound book)

THE ECOLOGY, EXPLOITATION AND CONSERVATION OF RIVER TURTLES
by Don Moll and Edward O. Moll. Considered by turtle scientists, and conservationists as one of the best books on turtle conservation. 420 pages;
90 halftones & 3 line illus.; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; List price $80, now $30.00 plus $7.50 S&H.(2 copies left at this price)

"BIOLOGY OF THE BOAS AND PYTHONS"
Edited by R.W. Henderson and R. Powell
2007,Eagle Mountain Publishing, 448 pages, 30 chapters by 79 authors, over 200 color photographs, maps, figures, and drawings, Table of Contents available, $100.00 PLUS $7.50 For S&H.

On how to order see below

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Allen Salzberg

Publisher/Editor of HerpDigest. The Only Free Weekly E-Zine That Reports on The Latest News on Herpetological Conservation, Husbandry, and Science
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