News Release:
Frogs a key to big picture of salinity
| Date 10/12/03 No 230/03 A new study shows that frogs' low tolerance of salts could help scientists understand how dryland salinity affects Australia's animals. Dr Donna Hazell, from the Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies at the Australian National University, discussed her project during a symposium on salinity at the University of New England yesterday. The symposium was part of the annual conference of the Ecological Society of Australia, held at UNE on 8-10 December. She explained that frogs' distribution over a range of habitats, as well as their physiological sensitivity to salinity, made them useful indicators of the salinity status of an entire region. She and her colleague Dr Sue Briggs from the NSW Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) have used the landscape of the Murrumbidgee Catchment in southern NSW (which encompasses part of the Kosciusko high country as well as extensive lowlands) as an initial case study. Dr Hazell said that frogs' complex life cycle (from egg to tadpole to adult), and their need for both land and water-based habitats, exposed them to salinity in a variety of ways. Her study is the first to bring all the available data on frog diversity, distribution, and exposure and sensitivity to salinity together with information on topography, wildlife habitats, and outbreaks of salinity for an entire region of Australia.
|
She said that her research, still at the conceptual stage, had established the framework for a future large-scale field study, and that she had been offered support for such a study from CSIRO, DEC, Geoscience Australia, and Greening Australia. This work could also form the basis of an environmental monitoring program that would allow community groups to measure improvements in biodiversity after carrying out salinity management works, she said. Dr Hazell's report contributed to a symposium that emphasised the importance of such landscape-scale studies in understanding and predicting the processes of salinity. The symposium brought together researchers from around Australia, and the results of research into both land and water salinity. Other symposiums at the conference included discussions of rivers, natural pest control, the function of native vegetation and biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, the "greenhouse effect", and conservation planning. Media contact: Dr Donna Hazell on 0417 414 461 or (after Monday
15 December) at ANU on (02) 6125 5015, or Professor Peter Jarman,
Ecosystem Management, UNE, on (02) 6773 2194. |
