Adding an important data point on African frogs
Big data syntheses need data, and the majority of scientific data still comes from the nothern hemisphere power houses of USA and Europe with China fast catching up. However, there is still a lot of the rest of the world out there. It is important that studies are made, especially in the southern hemisphere in data poor areas. Today, a new paper on the "Vulnerability of amphibians to global warming" was published in Nature. The article used physiological data from all over the world, but one continent had hardly any data available to the authors.
The African continent is especially data poor:
With only 4 data points on it, Africa is a notably large continent with a hardly any data. It is satisfying then that the one data point (shown in Cape Town) comes from the study of Carla Wagener (see here). This study looked at the physiological performance of tadpoles from high and low altitude locations of the African clawed frog, Xenopus laevis.
Obviously, Africa needs more data points, but we are very pleased that we were able to contribute to such an important study.
Literature
Pottier, P., Kearney, M.R., Wu, N.C. et al. Vulnerability of amphibians to global warming. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-08665-0
Wagener, C., Kruger, N., Measey, J. (2021) Progeny of Xenopus laevis from altitudinal extremes display adaptive physiological performance. J Exp Biol 1 April 2021; 224 (7): jeb233031. doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.233031
