Cannibalism and the African clawed frog

There's something about cannibalism that intrigues reporters, so that if you have it in your title you're really very likely to get some press coverage. Corey did in his paper recently publised online early in the African Journal of Ecology (see blog article here). And so it was that Joshua Learn contacted us about writing something for the New Scientist about this article. 

You can read the original article by Joshua here. 

And as if by magic, lots of other folk have picked up on this story, but all using the same New Scientist article as a base.

Read stories in the Daily Mail 

Earth.com news

and TimesLive. This last one is a bit disturbing as the South African journalist (Dave Chambers) appears to believe that X. laevis are not indigenous to Cape Town (which of course they are). He also dug up a scary picture of me...

Read Corey's paper here in the African Journal of Ecology:

Thorp, C.J., Vonesh, J.R. & Measey, J. (in press) Cannibalism or congeneric predation? The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis Daudin) preferentially predate on larvae of Cape platannas (X. gilli Rose & Hewitt). African Journal of Ecology DOI:10.1111/aje.12577 pdf

Graduation night: December 2018

A great night of 5 MeaseyLab members graduating. To be fair, there were lots and lots of graduands:

The BSc's are at the back, Honours in the middle, MSc's toward the front, and the front row (in scarlet gowns) are the doctoral graduands. See if you can spot anyone you know (hint - check out the bottom left)...

Among them, special mention goes to Doc Mac:

It was a great pleasure to announce the graduation of Dr. Mohlamatsane Mokhatla. Read more about Mac in a blog post I wrote about his defense here.

Although she wasn't present, Marike Louw also graduated tonight with her MSc

Seen here (holding a rake in KZN) Marike defending her MSc in March before getting on a boat to spend time on Marion Island. Read more about Marike in a blog post I wrote about her defense here.

Also graduating were Reesher, Damian and Carla, all of whom completed their honours degrees by doing projects in the MeaseyLab. I only managed to catch up with Reesher after the ceremony, but here's a pic of all three of them giving their presentations at the MeaseyLab retreat  earlier on this year. 

...and here's Reesher in her gown

The African Bioacoustics Community's first ever meeting: ABC

It was a fatastic full week of revealing and fascinating talks on ecological acoustics. The event had lots of representation of aSCR.

I got to show my animation video of how aSCR locates frog calls. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth a look:

Posters:

Kearns, R., Louw, M., Turner, A., Slingsby, J., Altwegg, R. Borches, D., Stevenson, B.C. & Measey, J. No more singin’ in the rain? As acoustic assessment of changing calling densities of the Cape peninsula moss frog (Athroleptella lightfooti). African Bioacoustics Community Conference, UCT December 2018.

Poongavanan, J., Altwegg, R., Durbach, I. & Measey, J. Modelling range-wide density patters of Lightfoot’s Moss Frog (Athroleptella lightfooti) using acoustic monitoring data: Do the same factors affect occurrence and density? African Bioacoustics Community Conference, UCT December 2018.

Talks:

Poongavanan, J., Altwegg, R., Durbach, I. & Measey, J. Modelling range-wide density patters of Lightfoot’s Moss Frog (Athroleptella lightfooti) using acoustic monitoring data: Do the same factors affect occurrence and density? African Bioacoustics Community Conference, UCT December 2018

Altwegg, R., Measey, J., Borches, D. & Stevenson, B. Estimating density, occupancy and species richness from acoustic data. African Bioacoustics Community Conference, UCT December 2018

Measey, J., Stevenson, B., Scott, T., Altwegg, R. & Borches, D. Counting chirps: acoustic monitoring of cryptic frogs. African Bioacoustics Community Conference, UCT December 2018.