Analysis Of The Cane Toad Overpopulation

In this set of materials, the reading passage states the attempts to stop the spreading of cane toads in Australia and provides three reasons of support. While in the listening, the speaker opposes the passage and says that the attempts are unsuccessful and could cause environmental damage. Also, she refutes each of the author’s reasons.

The cane toad, also known as rhinella marina, got its bad reputation soon after being released into the Australian ecosystem in 1935 with the expectation that it would control the destructive cane beetle population. However, instead of controlling pests, the cane toad became a pest of its own. About 3,000 cane toads were released in the sugarcane plantations of north Queensland in 1935. There are now more than a million cane toads and their still expanding over an area of thousands of square kilometres in northeastern Australia. They are large, amphibians with dry, warty skin, and are native to the southern United States, Central America, and tropical South America. Their numbers are controllable in their normal range, but they have boomed

First of all, the reading states that construct a fence can prevent the advance toads from leaving to other parts of Australia. However, the lecture disagrees with the reading by insisting that the fence can block some toads but not all of them. Because there are

To begin with, whereas the reading passage thinks that building a national fence could prevent the spread of the toad, the lecturer argues that this means will be ineffective. That is because young toads and eggs easily go through the fence and they will spread through the river and stream. That is to say - the fence does not stop the cane toad from spreading.

According to the passage the cane toads are now becoming a threat to an environment. They passage suggests three different ways to stop the spread of them. However, the lecturer points out that it is not easy to get rid of the cane toad by the way that passage suggest. Also, unsuccessful attempts would damage the environment.

The olympic village effect is an example of evolution and a very fast one at that. The animal at fault is the Cane Toads originally introduced in Australia to get rid of pest. It quickly grew out of control. To the point where the now invasive species is the dominant species even among the indigenous. It is growing, getting stronger, and faster by the generation. Due to it not having any predators to keep the numbers at bay and the lush vegetation and amount of food it normally wouldn't have in its original environment. It has constantly been studied and it has been rapidly been evolving because the stronger and faster will have migrated further and faster, this leads to the elites breeding repeatedly and so on and so forth. This domino effect

In this set of materials, the reading passage states several attempts to stop the spreading of cane toad in Australia and provides three reasons od support. While in the listening, the professor opposes the text book and says that the attempts are unsuccessful and may cause environmental damage. She also refutes each of the author’s reasons.

We speculate that the southern toad is in higher abundance in the direct vicinity of water versus the dryer surrounding area due to the breeding season (February- October) and the high levels of nutrition needed (Meshaka, W. E., J.R., &

In this set of materials, the reading passage brings some solutions to prevent the large cane toad population in the Australia that they come from south America deliberately to protect farmers' crop by eating harmful insects, but have the visa versa effects because of high reproduction; however, the professor is in disagreement with whatever the reading passage maintained.

A recent study done by Yale University shows the effects that suburban plants can have on the green frog population and its sex ratio. There are higher levels of estrogen in places where there are more shrubs or manicured lawns, causing a disruption in the frog sex ratio. There are now more females frogs than males. Studies show that these suburban plants disrupt the frogs’ endocrine levels, which causes the gender imbalance. There are more than twice as many females born in suburban ponds than in more natural, forested ponds. Yet, scientists did not do much research into why these suburban ponds are causing such disruptions in green frogs’ sex ratio. Finally, the study suggests that suburban ponds may also have effects on other animals, such

The toads return to their breeding zone a few days after the final aftershock has occurred (Grant and Halliday 2010). This is bizarre because natural selection favours those who reproduce, which also have the highest fitness. If fleeing the breeding zone and not reproducing increases fitness, then the toads should not return and find a new breeding zone, unless they have a way of telling that the earthquake has ended, and it is safe to breed in that area again. The textbook used for this course, “Animal Behaviour: Concepts, Methods, and Applications”, explains that some animal behaviours are adopted through genetics and some are just adaptations learned from trial and error. The return of the male toads to the breeding zone confirms that this is a genetically adapted behaviour that is passed down to offspring raised in or around that breeding zone. Trial and error would not fit in this situation because there would have to be multiple earthquakes in that area for the toads to eventually realize it is not a safe place for

The amphibians and reptiles found in this jungle include around 161 species, with dived into 60 amphibians and 101 reptiles. Also the avefauna is very varied, 91 species (21%) are long distance migrantes that reproduce themselves in North America and go to Monteverde during winter season. An important fact about this forest is that “Monteverde is known, worldwide, for being the place where the golden toad (Bufo periglenes) dwells. This species disappeared in 1989.” (Cloud forest,n.d.). Also its important to know that not only the fauna found in the forest is what make this town popular, but its agricultural coffee plantation, pineapples and

Frogs and Koalas are both becoming extinct and they are both losing their homes. According to the article, the population of Koalas had dropped because hunters killed them for their fur. Frogs have also had their population decrease because of the pesticides and weed killers farmers use on farms. The pesticides and weed killers get washed down into the streams and ponds where frogs live. Furthermore, in both articles, many people want to help to save these animals. They try to find ways to keep them from

It was interesting to read your post! I did not know the AKA Caribbean or Puerto Rican Tree Frog was a invasive species. Indeed, I thought that the frog was in danger of extinction. Well a least is good to know that this specie has not disappear yet. I just saw a video of this frog, and I realized that this a cute frog and his song is beautiful, and the video also thanks to the video I learned that the songs of this frog serves two purposes; the "co" is a call to the female and the "qui" is a warning or signaling territory to other males around. I cannot believe that this frog is an invasive species, and there has to be other ways to deal with this animal. I would not want that this frog

There is limited data available to answer questions concerning climate change on amphibians with most existing data from the 90’s to date. Nonetheless, even with large sets of data, it would be difficult to determine the causal relationship with environmental factors varying concurrently (Carey et al, 2003). Despite the ambiguous direct causal relationship, it is evident that climatic warming influences other deleterious factors like pathogen growth, habitat destruction thus the direct causal relationship might not be very necessary to consider to draw conclusions that climatic warming is a major influence in the declines. Human factors unrelated to climatic warming like destruction of habitat through grazing, road construction, feeding on amphibians and pollution are being controlled and preservation methods are being implemented like Yellowstone national park. Climatic change is affecting amphibian decline whether directly or indirectly. However, synergistic reasons are more evidently the main cause of amphibian decline where several possible causes; climatic change being one of the main, interact leading to decline in amphibians. One might be a stimulant to the factor that kills the