Xenopus not so aquatic
A new paper using the data from Andre's MSc project shows that African clawed frogs move large distances overland (up to 2.4 km). The 3 year study found that 5% of frogs moved between 8 ponds in the study area of Kleinmond. This amount of movement may be so much that these frogs can no longer be considered a metapopulation.
We got the top slot on the PeerJ website (again!).
The really surprising result is the amount of movement between sites, and the animals that were moving. We found no evidence of the smallest size classes of frogs moving between ponds. This would turn the dispersal paradigm on its head for this species. For most pond breeding frogs, it is the metamorphs and juveniles which are responsible for most of the dispersal within a population. This may not happen for X. laevis as smaller animals are so much more susecptible to dessication. The study isn't over and we will be following up on this idea in years to come.
De Villiers FA, Measey J. (2017) Overland movement in African clawed frogs (Xenopus laevis): empirical dispersal data from within their native range. PeerJ 5:e4039 https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4039
Read the article here
Thanks to @Xen_Ben for the blog title!
