6/23/2013

It has been an exhausting day.

I experimented on frogs this morning that I had caught last night.

Released them at lunch and found some more.

Back to the lab and worked on my agar models more (I'm having trouble with the itty-bitty models staying together)

And then continuing the CTmax experiments some more.

Here's the environments I put them in. I slowly increase the temperature by 0.5 C. Most of the time they look like this.

 Happy little frog.

These frogs, called Craugastor bransfordii, are showing a CTmax around 29-30C.

After I've increased the temperature of the water I try to flip the animals on their back.

Frogs and lizards don't like that and normally flip right-side-up immediately.

When they've reached their CTmax (critical thermal maximum temperature) their basic functions begin to shut down (enzymes start to denature, etc.).

When that happens they look like this.

Not so happy...

My research will find the CTmax for certain species living in the tropics.

Every time I catch or see one, I also take the temperature of the animal in its natural environment.

The idea is that I can take the CTmax and subtract the temp. they're at now.



This number (that I'm thinking is around 4-6 C) is the warming tolerance, or WT.

So WT is the number of degrees (in celsius) that these animals can handle before they're constantly at their CTmax.

So they'd always be at the temperature where they're stuck on their backs.

Which would not be a good thing.

Climate change might lead to temperature increasing by 8-12 C by the end of the century.

These poor little froggies and lizards might all be gone well before that.

I don't want to be a debbie-downer though. There are still plenty of frogs, snakes, lizards, birds, bugs, spiders, fish and mammals to see for the time-being!




We headed into 'town' today to soak up some local flavor. Puerto Viejo. 

 Here's a photo of 'main street'.

If you look towards the trees in the background, that's the jungle... Three blocks away.

At least they had a grocery store where we could stock up on medical supplies (a.k.a. roll of duct tape) and caffeine.

I probably won't make the effort to go there again unless I have to.

Tonight I think that rest is on the menu.

I'm going to try and delay going into the jungle alone at night for as long as possible.

Which in all likelihood will be tomorrow.

Until then.