The Toad Team pull off a spectacular presentation for Cape Herp Club

In these times of uncertainty, there are opportunities to do things differently. Normally, the Cape Herp Club meets every other month in the lab of one of the host groups. This month, we couldn't meet as we are all confined to our homes to comply with the government emergency legislation to fight COVID-19.

As it was the MeaseyLab's turn to host the Cape Herp Club, we decided to have a whole bunch of talks about Guttural Toads, Sclerophrys gutturalis, and the work that the lab is currently engaged in. Because we weren't allowed to meet in person, we decided to do a video conference, and that allowed us more opportunities to get creative about the talks we could give.

Many blog readers will remember the visit of Carla & Adriana last year from Brazil (see blog entries here, here and here). You will also remember that last month, Max had to go back to Germany before finishing his experiment (see blog post here). We were able to invite them them all to participate in our presentation.

It was amazing to see more than 30 people join this Cape Herp Club meeting.

But because we didn't have to have people physically present, we could invite our collaborators from all over the world. 

In attendance were Guttural Toad collaborators:

Claudia Baider & Vincent Florens (Mauritius)

Morne du Plessis (Pretoria)

Fernando Ribiero Gomes (Sao Paulo)

Louis du Preez (Potchefstroom)

Of course, most people were alone in their houses, but a few were able to show us how (and how not) to do social distancing.

After ~40 years in France African clawed frogs are adapted to the cold

In order to accurately model the potential distribution of expanding populations of ectothermic invasive species, we need accurate models that determine how they perform in different thermal environments. The model amphibian, the African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis) has had many studies on thermal preferences of laboratory bred populations that could be used in species distribution models. However, this would assume that laboratory bred animals have not adapted from the wild-type, or that introduced populations themselves have not undergone thermal adaptation.

A new study by Araspin et al (2020) used populations of clawed frogs from two sites in their native South Africa as well as from the invasive French population to test whether any adaptation had occurred in thermal performance in the ~40 years since their introduction. Surprisingly, French invasive frogs showed a significant rapid shift in their thermal dependence of locomotor performance, meaning that they perform better at colder temperatures than wild caught animals. 

The implications of this finding are that the population of invasive frogs currently undergoing expansion in France will be able to penetrate more temperate European climates. Hence distribution models that were made using the distribution of wild-caught animals will need to be recalculated in order to determine just how widespread this species may become.

Read more

Araspin, L., A. Serra Martinez, C. Wagener, J. Courant, V. Louppe, P. Padilla, J. Measey and A. Herrel (2020) Rapid shifts in the temperature dependence of locomotor performance in an invasive frog, Xenopus laevis, implications for conservation. Integrative and Comparative Biology   60(2):456–466 https://doi.org/10.1093/icb/icaa010 pdf

The paper followed the contribution of a talk by Anthony Herrel at the SICB meeting in Austin Texas:

Herrel, A., L. Araspin, P. Padilla, J. Courant, S.A. Martinez, R. Rebelo, F. Ihlow, T. Backeljau, M. Mokhatla, P. Ginal, D. Rodder, J. Measey (2020) "Rapid Local Adaptations in an Invasive Frog (Xenopus laevis): the Importance of Functional Trait Measurements to Predict Future Invasions." In INTEGRATIVE AND COMPARATIVE BIOLOGY, vol. 60, pp. E102-E102.

The control and eradication of invasive species is an ever-increasing problem for wildlife management and conservation practitioners. Understanding the potential future spread of invasive species is critical to inform management decisions. One often used tool to predict future species distributions is species distribution modelling (SDM) under alternative scenarios of climate change. Although extremely relevant and insightful, most of these models suffer from two drawbacks: 1) the lack of physiological data describing the dependence of organisms on changes in temperature and hydric state; 2) they ignore any potential for adaptive differentiation of invasive populations. To test what the effect could be of these two parameters we focused on invasive populations of the invasive amphibian, Xenopus laevis. We collected data on anatomy and physiology (temperature dependence of performance traits) for animals from the source population as well as invasive populations. These data were then used to inform SDMs that predict future spread under different climate change scenarios and to test for the potential adaptive divergence of invasive populations relative to the native population in morphology and physiology. Our results show that incorporating physiological data in SDMs does provide different predictions on future distribution ranges with a much higher invasion potential than previously estimated. Furthermore, our results show rapid (less than 30 years) changes in morphology and physiology in different populations suggesting local adaptation. These results stress the importance of using biologically informed data to inform conservation practices.

Making a schedule of work to do...

Lockdown has come to us all. At the time of writing, we (in South Africa) have just completed our first full week of lockdown due to the emerging Covid-19 pandemic. Almost everyone has returned home to self isolate. Some lab members are back with their families, others are in their accommodation in Stellenbosch. The university has closed its doors during this period, and all experiments and practical work has stopped. 

Whether we wanted it or not, we now have an opportunity to write up completed projects, or plan the work that we want to do. While the lockdown might come with many unwanted restrictions, it does allow all MeaseyLab members to concentrate on analysis and writing.

But how should we remain productive, or (for some of us) how do we even start getting into a productive cycle? 

Try to enjoy your lockdown period, and make it as productive as you can. Everyone has their own way of working, but if you are struggling here are some tips that I find useful:

Schedule your work & mix it up

There are some tasks that we have that are more fun than others, and it's nice to have something that you can look forward to. Thus, making a simple schedule for your work where you indicate what you are doing and when can really help.

• Know when you are more productive, and plan accordingly
  • some of us work better first thing in the morning, and others in the evening. Get to know yourself and plan to do the difficult stuff when you're fresh - or warmed up!
• Make a "To Do" list
  • this will help you know what some of the little tasks are as well as bigger blocks.
  • If you really only have one thing to do (e.g. write PhD proposal), then break this up into smaller workable chunks so that you can start ticking them off
  • don't underestimate the importance and satisfaction of ticking off items on a to do list. Put it up on your wall, use coloured pens. Anything that makes it more satisfying for you
• Don't become a slave to any schedule that you make
  • when you are being really productive, don't stop just because your time is up. 
  • conversely, when you're failing on a task don't stay with it when its time is up. Move on and come back to it soon. Even when you aren't doing this task, your brain will continue working on the problem.
  • Some problems do much better after a nights sleep, so if something is really bugging you then distill it and read this summary before you go to bed. Let your brain work on it overnight and reflect on what you think in the morning. It's worth having a go!
    
• Be aware of what eats into your time (e.g. social media!)
  • if you really need to do this, then put it into your schedule for a less productive time when you know that you'll be flagging. 
  • When it's not scheduled, keep it off your desktop and avoid having alerts on your phone
• Be logical in what you choose to do when. 
  • Don't plan to write your results when you haven't analysed your data.
• Include items that are non-work into your schedule: 
  • such as coffee/tea breaks, social media fixes or exercise slots, and communicate these with anyone that you are in lockdown with (especially if they are prone to interrupting your most productive periods).
  • and include little things like writing or updating your profile for this website or the CIB website. Part of remaining productive is achieving little things on your to do list, as well as the really big items.
• Plan meetings with other lab members (on zoom, skype or whatsapp), and keep communicating with your advisor, even if it's just to check in. It does help to chat about what you are doing as it helps you to verbalise and forces you to put it into another perspective. 
• Don't spend too much time in this scheduling - it could end up eating all your time!

Don't forget that there is information on writing elsewhere on this website: 

Toad Olympics are over (not postponed), diet data collected and tadpoles have metamorphosed

Max had been hard at work on his experiment and has collected vast amounts of data. It has been a lot of work for Max. Let's remember where he came from, months ago, toads were laying eggs. Guttural toads were caught in their native range, and invasive toads (from Cape Town) were moved back up to their native Durban to breed.

In this common garden experiment, all of the toads were kept and bred in the same conditions. Max's interest was in the tadpoles, their time to development, performance on the way and their change into metamorphs.

So it's been quite a journey.

Meanwhile...

Sam has been flushing guts galore and building lots of traps for catching invertebrates to see what's available for the toads to eat.

Lastly, James has been making those toads run, jump and climb.

Above (right) you can see a toad that has succesfully climbed out of it's confinement. Below, a toad in an experiment to measure exploration behaviour dares to leave its hideout and venture around the arena.

Published: Biological Invasions in South Africa

In what is actually a big event for the Centre for Invasion Biology, and invasion biologists all over South Africa, our book "Biological Invasions in South Africa" is published today! Moreover, it is Open Access and therefore free for anyone to download.

With 104 authors contributing to 31 chapters, there are nearly 1000 pages of text in this volume. The idea is that this book represents an encyclopaedic approach to covering all aspects of invasions in South Africa.

I wrote 2 chapters in the book that cover the invasive vertebrates in South Africa, as well as the invasive animals that have been donated from South Africa to the rest of the world. I also contributed to seven more chapters that cover many different aspects of invasions. Below you'll find the citations to my chapters, but I recommend downloading the entire book and looking through it all.

Byrne MJ et al. (2020) Education, training and capacity building in the field of biological invasions in South Africa. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer, Berlin, pp 731-755. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_25 Davies SJ et al. (2020) Experience and lessons from invasive and alien animal control projects carried out in South Africa. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer, Berlin, pp 629-663. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_22 Measey J, Hui C, Somers M (2020) Terrestrial vertebrate invasions in South Africa. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer, Berlin, pp 115-151. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_5 Measey J, Robinson TB, Kruger N, Zengeya TA, Hurley BP (2020) South Africa as a donor of alien animals to other parts of the world. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer, Berlin, pp 787-830. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_27 Potgieter LJ et al. (2020) Biological invasions in South Africa’s urban ecosystems: Patterns, processes, impacts and management. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer, Berlin, pp 275-309. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_11 Richardson DM, Abrahams B, Boshoff N, Davies SJ, Measey J, van Wilgen B (2020) South Africa’s Centre for Invasion Biology: An Experiment in Invasion Science for Society. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological Invasions in South Africa pp 879-914 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_30 van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, Zengeya T (2020) Overview of biological invasions in South Africa. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer, Berlin pp 3-31. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_1 Wilson JR et al. (2020) The role of environmental factors in promoting and limiting biological invasions in South Africa. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer, Berlin pp 355-385. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_13 Wilson JR, Measey J, Richardson DM, van Wilgen BW, Zengeya TA (2020) Potential futures of biological invasions in South Africa. In: van Wilgen BW, Measey J, Richardson DM, Wilson JR, van Wilgen BW (eds) Biological invasions in South Africa. Springer,  Berlin pp 917-946 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-32394-3_31