Through a generous grant from the Seattle City Light, we have just published a paper in Conservation Genetics on the effect of hydroelectric dams on coastal tailed frogs in the North Cascades National Park! Click here to find the paper on Conservation Genetics’ website. We found evidence for population structuring down-river of the oldest dam, suggesting the power of SNPs in detecting recently created population structure. However, overall, migration is high in this system, indicating that tailed frogs don’t appear to be drastically affected by this hydroelectric operation!

We published a “sister” article from this same study system in which we surveyed for Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the fungal pathogen that causes the often-fatal amphibian disease chytridiomycosis. My interpretation as a scientist: we did not discover B. dendrobatidis in this study system. My interpretation as a naturalist: hooray!! You can find that article here.

You can get distilled versions (with pictures!) of this research on UW Biology’s blog, as well as the Burke Museum’s blog.

Come on by the Burke Museum on UW’s campus until April 19th to see more on this research in the Wild Nearby Exhibit!