Frog to trout: ‘Go away’
The rare mountain yellow-legged frog recovers nicely in lakes once trout are expelled, according to a new study.
The frogs swarmed the Sierra a century ago, but their numbers have plummeted since the 1980s and they are endangered in Southern California.
UC Berkeley biologist Vance T. Vredenburg monitored 21 mountain lakes for eight years. Within three years after rainbow and brook trout were removed, five lakes supported 50 to 2,000 adult frogs, depending on lake size, equal to lakes where trout were absent. The amphibians were not as abundant in lakes where fish and frogs overlapped.
Trout eat tadpoles. Frogs are also threatened by air pollution, ultraviolet radiation and disease. The study appeared in Monday’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
-- Ashley Powers
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