School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society<\/a> said: \u201cNatterjack Toads have declined across the UK, not just in Scotland.<\/p>\n\u201cWe wanted to find out why these tiny toads were surviving in the nature reserve in Dumfries and Galloway, but had disappeared from sites along that coast.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe used anecdotal reports from farmers and local wildlife groups to identify former breeding ponds in Caerlaverock, Southerness and several farms.\u201d<\/p>\n
The team analysed water samples from Mersehead, where the Natterjack Toad survives, and six other sites.<\/p>\n
They measured temperature, pH and salinity and exposed Natterjack spawn to water from each of the sites.<\/p>\n
Dr Orton said \u201cSome of the former breeding sites had such a high level of salinity that no embryos survived to hatching.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome weren\u2019t as lethally salty, but what we saw there was that the toads were much smaller.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat doesn\u2019t sound like a big deal, but when you\u2019re a frog, size really does matter. 95% of tadpoles are eaten by predators. For the five percent that make it to the next stage of development, they need to be as big as possible for a chance at survival.\u201d<\/p>\n
Orton says the findings could help more focused restoration efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil now, a lot of Natterjack Toad restoration efforts have focused on improving terrestrial habitat, like clearing scrub or controlling vegetation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s still important, but now we know that unless the salinity of the water is tackled, the tiny toads will have no chance of survival.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmphibians are the fastest-declining vertebrate group globally. They\u2019ve been around for 350 million years, but now species like the Natterjack Toad are disappearing, quickly.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey play a huge ecological role as both predators and prey – they feed lots of animal species and, as gardeners will tell you, they eat lots of slugs and midges.<\/p>\n
\u201cNatterjack Toads are on the verge of extinction and it\u2019s vital we understand ways to protect and boost the populations that remain.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Orton and her team conducted the research in 2019-2021 across seven sites in Dumfries and Galloway. The research was supported by the Carnegie Trust and Nature Scot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Salty water could be preventing the recovery of the Natterjack Toad, one of the UK\u2019s rarest amphibians, by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[210644,59,203244,57,58,210646,50,547,210645,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-620115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-alumni-and-development","tag-gb","tag-geoscience","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-infrastructure-and-society","tag-news","tag-research","tag-school-of-energy","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}