First in vitro Puerto Rico crested toad gives scientists hope

NOVEMBER 23, 2019 

by Dánica Coto 

A critically endangered Puerto Rican toad was for the first time born via in vitro fertilization as U.S. scientists attempt to save it from extinction, officials announced Friday. 

Olaf - named in honor of the frozen semen he came from—is the first of more than 300 Puerto Rican crested toads that hatched after the first attempt failed, Diane Barber, ectotherms curator at the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas, told The Associated Press. 

"We don't typically name our toads, but that one deserved special recognition," she said via phone. "We were super, super excited. ... You kind of hold your breath for 30 days to see if they're going to metamorphose." 

Barber was part of a team that traveled to the southwest town of Guayanilla last year to collect semen from six male Puerto Rican crested toads that were later released back into the wild. The scientists were careful to select bigger toads that had what are called "nuptial pads" on their thumbs, which indicate sexual maturity and help them grab on to females, she said. 

Extracting semen from toads that measure up to 4.5 inches (11 centimeters) long is normally easy: they release it in their urine, and they usually pee whenever they're picked up, Barber said. But for those toads that did not pee, another tactic was used. 

"It's kind of weird, but if you hold them in your hand and look at them and bark at them like a dog, they will pee," she said. 

The team, which included scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Puerto Rico's Department of Natural Resources, among others, preserved the semen in liquid nitrogen as they transported it to the Fort Worth Zoo, where a couple of female toads injected with hormones awaited. 

Efforts to save the Puerto Rican crested toad date back a couple of decades, but this is the first time in vitro fertilization was used, according to Armando Otero, interim secretary of the island's Department of Natural Resources. 

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Political will needed to tackle illegal trade of turtle meat in Bali: officials – via Herp Digest

By Coconuts Bali Oct 7, 2019

The trade of all turtle species, turtle products and their eggs may be illegal under Indonesian law, but a recent accident involving a truck transporting more than a dozen sea turtles in Bali last week revealed a glimpse into how weak law enforcement enables the trade to continue on the black market. 

“Law enforcement is weak. [Police] are the one who must enforce them. We are not authorized to crack down on [illegal trade],” Permana Yudiarso, an official from the Coastal and Marine Resources Management Center (BPSPL) in Bali, told Tribun-Bali recently. 

Last week, a truck driver reportedly transporting 18 sea turtles crashed his vehicle on Sunset Road, Kuta. Yudiarso saw the incident as another signal into how illegal trade of turtle meat still exists on the island. 

A special report by Tribun-Bali seems to have reaffirmed this, wherein a number of food stalls were found to offer turtle meat on their menu. In fact, one of the owners of these establishments claimed that the turtles from the accident last week was his order. 

“Many police officers and people from the prosecutor’s office often come by to eat [turtle meat] here,” the owner reportedly said. 

Cases involving turtle meat in Bali are not exactly new. In March, police officers from Gianyar regency managed to save 13 live green turtles from a suspected illegal turtle meat trade. That was followed by another case in April, in which officials seized 280 kilograms of turtle meat from a truck at the Padangbai port. 

Sulistyo Widodo, an official from the Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) in Bali, said that turtle meat traded in Bali usually comes as ready-to-sell meat items, and highlighted that Ketewel village in Gianyar regency are quite known for dishes with the illegal products. 

Indonesia’s 1990 Conservation Law categorizes sea turtles as protected species, and violators could face up to five years’ imprisonment and a maximum fine of IDR100 million (US$7,056). 

Yudiarsa highlighted that the continued illegal trade in Bali is due to existing demand, emphasizing on the importance of “political will” to curb the activity. 

“It’s simply about will. Political will … There must be a will coming from the regional government and also the consumers themselves. It must be a joint commitment,” Yudiarsa was quoted as saying.

This Fungus Makes Snakes Look Like Mummies. It Just Turned Up in California. – via Herp Digest

LiveScience by Nicoetta Lettan 11/6/19 

A fungal disease is infecting snakes across the nation, and now, it's reached California. 

A newly emerging disease infects snakes and causes their skin to crust, eyes to cloud and faces to swell — and now, a stricken serpent has been spotted in California.This is the first case of "snake fungal disease" seen in the state, according to a statement from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW). The infected California kingsnake was found in the Sierra Nevada in Amador County by a member of the public who brought the "emaciated and suffering" animal to a wildlife care center. Tattered skin clung to the animal's warped face, making the cloudy-eyed snake look more like a mummy than a living creature.

As of yet, officials don't know how the disease might impact snake populations in California. Right now, their top priority is to make sure humans don't spread the fungus to snakes across the state. 

There's no danger of humans catching the disfiguring snake disease, though. "There is no evidence that SFD is transmittable from snakes to humans," the report added. 

Scientists first characterized snake fungal disease in 2008 and learned that a fungus called Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola causes the infection, according to CDFW. Since then, researchers have found the infectious organism in 30 snake species in the U.S. and Europe, 23 U.S. states and one Canadian province. Snakes can pick up the fungus through abrasions in their skin or physical contact with infected snakes. A severe infection causes the skin to become bumpy and molt repeatedly, while the affected snake's face may become too disfigured for the animal to feed properly. The weakened snakes tend to rest in open areas, vulnerable to the elements and nearby predators. 

While O. ophiodiicola stands as the leading cause of skin infection among wild snakes, the contagion often only causes a mild infection and doesn't kill the affected animal, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). Environmental changes may be behind the "recent emergence of severe and fatal infections in some snake populations," USGS scientists said. 

Snake fungal disease poses a threat to dwindling snake populations, including the timber rattlesnake and the federally threatened eastern massasauga, according to the CDFW statement. Officials encourage the public to report any sightings of snakes with skin sores or unusual behavior, but avoid handling or disturbing the animals. Just this week, the fungus was detected in tissues from a dead Florida water snake found by the CDFW in Folsom, Sacramento County, according to the organization's report.

For Chesapeake oysters, the way forward leads back—through the fossil record

NOVEMBER 21, 2019 

by Joseph McClain, The College of William & Mary

Big oyster/old oyster: Rowan Lockwood displays one of the 900 oyster fossils studied in a palaeobiological analysis of the oysters of the Chesapeake Bay. She and co-author Roger Mann believe fossil beds paint a picture of the oyster population of a healthy Chesapeake ecosystem. Credit: Stephen Salpukas 

Oysters once dominated the ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the Bay to return to full ecological health without restoring Crassostrea virginica to its glory days of the Chesapeake's apex filterer. 

Rowan Lockwood and Roger Mann believe that you have to go back to the fossil record to get your head around the idea of a fully oystered Chesapeake. Their paper, "A conservation paleobiological perspective on Chesapeake Bay oysters," appears in a special issue of Philosophical Transactions B, titled ""The past is a foreign country: how much can the fossil record actually inform conservation?". 

Lockwood is a professor in William & Mary's Department of Geology, which she chairs. Mann is a professor in the Department of Fisheries Science at the university's Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Their collaboration melds Lockwood's examination of long-dead oysters in the Chesapeake with Mann's expertise in the state of oysters today. 

Their paper looks at 900 fossil oysters from three Pleistocene reefs and compares them to oysters today. Lockwood and Mann employ conservation paleontology methods to create a model of how the Chesapeake Bay looked and functioned long before humans. 

Basically, the prehistoric oysters were bigger and more numerous—and therefore filtered more water. 

"This is clearly a case of bigger is better," Lockwood said. "Larger oysters filter significantly more water, remove more algae, produce more offspring, buffer more acidic bay water, recycle more nitrogen and possibly even bury more carbon than smaller ones." 

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Tropical fish shredding kelp forests in temperate zones

NOVEMBER 21, 2019 

by Simone Hewett, University of Western Australia

Climate change is causing previously temperate oceans to become more tropical with coral reef fish moving south, settling in and changing how things work in their new temperate neighborhood, according to a study by The University of Western Australia and international researchers. 

The research, published today in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences describes that as climate change is progressing, species from the tropics are shifting their distribution to cooler environments at higher latitudes around the world, settling on new temperate ecosystems in a process known as tropicalization. 

Salvador Zarco Perello, from UWA's School of Biological Sciences and Oceans Institute, said the researchers investigated the expansion of the tropical herbivore rabbitfish Siganus fuscescens on kelp forest in Western Australia. 

"Our research provided important evidence about how ecologically important tropical fish species moving south can impact the functioning of temperate reefs," Mr Zarco Perello said. 

These fish are eating canopy-forming seaweeds, which in turn threatens the habitats of those living there first, the team says. 

Additionally, by chewing up these habitat-forming seaweeds, the researchers say the poleward-journeying fish are increasing the detritus production; feeding different groups of invertebrate sea life and potentially changing the abundance of the species that recycle this biomass and, in turn, those that consume them. 

Around the world, important herbivorous fish including rabbitfish, parrotfish, surgeonfish and drummers are increasing in abundance in temperate seaweed forests. 

"Our research showed that the expansion and persistence of rabbitfish on WA kelp forests, following a marine heatwave in 2011, has led to a five-fold acceleration in kelp shredding year-round," Mr Zarco Perello said. "This is transforming solid kelp blades into micro particulate matter, a function usually attributed to invertebrates, such as sea urchins. 

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