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101 results for “Cane Toad”
Data from: Effect of parasite infection and invasion history on feeding, growth and energy allocation of cane toads
<p>The energy allocation decisions that organisms make can differ between sexes and populations and be influenced by factors such as age and parasite infection. We conducted experimental parasite infections on common-garden reared cane toads originating from sites across the species' invasive range in Australia to assess how sex, parasite infection and invasion history affected the toad's food intake, growth rate and organ weights. Female toads had larger fat stores, larger livers and larger gonads than did males, reflecting increased investment into gametes. Growth rate did not differ between the sexes. Lungworm infection increased feeding by male but not female toads and increased fat storage in all toads. Fat body, liver, gonad sizes and feeding rates all differed among toads from different locations within the toad's invasion transect across Australia, even though our measurements were made under standardized conditions on captive animals. Toads from populations close to the invasion front ate more and had heavier fatbodies, and livers than did toads from long-colonised areas, but they had smaller gonads. This pattern reflects the evolution of a more dispersive phenotype among invasive populations, whereby the rate of dispersal is enhanced by increased energy intake and storage, and delayed reproduction.</p>
Cane Toad Acoustic Classifier Audio Training Data
<h3><strong>Cane Toad Audio Dataset for Machine Learning Classifier Development</strong></h3> <h3><strong>Description:</strong></h3> <p>This dataset was created as part of a study aimed at developing a machine learning classifier to detect the advertisement calls of the cane toad (<em>Rhinella marina</em>) using BirdNET. The dataset comprises 3-second audio snippets that capture a variety of sounds, including cane toad vocalizations, calls from spectrally overlapping species, environmental noises, and unidentified sounds. These labelled sound data were collected from various Australian Acoustic Observatory' recording sites, covering a broad range of geographic locations and environmental conditions in Australia.</p> <h3><strong>Sound Classes:</strong></h3> <ul> <li>Background</li> <li>Canis lupus dingo (Dingo)</li> <li>Centropus phasianinus (Pheasant Coucal)</li> <li>Cyclorana australis (Water Holding Frog)</li> <li>Cyclorana cryptotis (Hidden Ear Frog)</li> <li>Cyclorana novaehollandiae (New Holland Frog)</li> <li>Dacelo novaeguineae (Kookaburra)</li> <li>Ninox boobook (Southern Boobook)</li> <li>Notaden melanoscaphus (Northern Spadefoot Toad)</li> <li>Rhinella marina (Cane Toad) – Processed with a low-pass filter to remove frequencies above 1300 Hz, minimizing interference from co-occurring sounds.</li> <li>Unidentified Sounds</li> </ul> <h3><strong>Use and Applications:</strong></h3> <p>This dataset is valuable for training machine learning models focused on the acoustic detection of cane toads, could be useful for researchers and professionals working in bioacoustics, machine learning, ecological monitoring and invasive species management.</p>
Dispersal distances of radio-tracked cane toads in French Guiana
<p>Like most invasive species, cane toads have attracted less research in their native range than in invaded areas. We radio-tracked 34 free-ranging toads in French Guiana, a source region for most invasive populations, across two coastal and two rainforest sites. Coastal toads generally sheltered in pools of fresh or brackish water but nocturnally foraged on beaches, whereas rainforest toads sheltered in forested habitats, moving into open areas at night. Over five days of monitoring, native toads frequently re-used shelters and moved little between days (means = 10–63 m/site) compared to invasion-front toads from Australia (~250 m). Larger toads moved less between days, but displaced in more consistent directions. At night, foraging toads travelled up to 200 m before returning to shelters. Foraging distance was related to body condition at coastal sites, with toads in poorer body condition travelling farther. Rain increased the probability of coastal toads sheltering in the dry habitats where they foraged. Dispersal and rainfall were lower at coastal sites, and the strategies utilized by coastal toads to minimize water loss resembled those of invasive toads in semi-desert habitats. This global invader already exhibits a broad environmental niche and substantial behavioural flexibility within its native range.</p>
Do changes in body mass alter white blood cell profiles and immune function in Australian cane toads (Rhinella marina)?
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Bisulfite sequencing (RRBS-seq): CpG methylation reports for Australian invasive cane toads
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Infection success data from experimental pairings of cane toad hosts and lungworm parasites
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Data on infection experiments of cane toads
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Data from: Effect of parasite infection and invasion history on feeding, growth and energy allocation of cane toads
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Dispersal distances of radio-tracked cane toads in French Guiana
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Colonization history affects heating rates of invasive cane toads
<p>Amphibians in hot climates may be able to avoid high temperatures by controlling their rates of heating. In northern Australia, invasive cane toads (<span class="Italic">Rhinella marina</span>) experience hot dry conditions in newly-colonized (western) sites but milder conditions in longer-occupied (eastern) sites. Under standardized conditions, toads from western sites heated less rapidly than did conspecifics from an eastern site. The availability of free water slowed heating rates of eastern but not western toads. Thus, the colonization of climatically extreme sites has been accompanied by a rapid shift in the toads' ability to remain cool under hot conditions, even when free water is not available.</p>
Skin morphology in cane toads
<p><span>The structure of the skin may evolve rapidly during a biological invasion, for two reasons. First, novel abiotic challenges such as hydric conditions may modify selection on traits (such as skin thickness) that determine rates of evaporative water loss. Second, invaders might benefit from enhanced rates of dispersal, with locomotion possibly facilitated by thinner (and hence more flexible) skin. We quantified thickness of layers of the skin in cane toads (<i>Rhinella marina</i>) from the native range (Brazil), a stepping-stone population (Hawai'i), and the invaded range in Australia. Overall, the skin is thinner in cane toads in Australia than in the native range, consistent with selection on mobility. However, layers that regulate water exchange (epidermal <i>stratum corneum</i> and dermal Ground Substance layer) are thicker in Australia, retarding water loss in hot dry conditions. Within Australia, epidermal thickness increased as the toads colonised more arid regions, but then decreased in the arid Kimberley region. That curvilinearity might reflect spatial sorting, whereby mobile (thin-skinned) individuals dominate the invasion front; or the toads' restriction to moist sites in this arid landscape may reduce the importance of water-conservation. Further work is needed to clarify the roles of adaptation versus phenotypic plasticity in generating the strong geographic variation in skin structure among populations of cane toads.</span></p>
Supplementary material 4 from: Smart AS, Tingley R, Phillips BL (2020) Estimating the benefit of quarantine: eradicating invasive cane toads from islands. NeoBiota 60: 117-136. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.60.34941
Figure S3. Posterior distributions of the detection probabilities of cane toads on Horan and Indian Islands
Supplementary material 2 from: Smart AS, Tingley R, Phillips BL (2020) Estimating the benefit of quarantine: eradicating invasive cane toads from islands. NeoBiota 60: 117-136. https://doi.org/10.3897/neobiota.60.34941
Figure S1. Estimated density of cane toads on each island using density calculated per km of shoreline, and per km2 of landmass
Morphology and locomotor performance of cane toads, Rhinella marina
<p>As is common in biological invasions, the rate at which cane toads (<i>Rhinella marina</i>) have spread across tropical Australia has accelerated through time. Individuals at the invasion-front travel further than range-core conspecifics, and exhibit distinctive morphologies that may facilitate rapid dispersal. However, the links between these morphological changes and locomotor performance have not been clearly documented. We used raceway trials and high-speed videography to document locomotor traits (e.g. hop distances, heights, velocities, and angles of take-off and landing) of toads from range-core and invasion-front populations. Locomotor performance varied geographically, and this variation in performance was linked to morphological features that have evolved during the toads' Australian invasion. Geographic variation in morphology and locomotor ability was evident not only in wild-caught animals, but also in individuals that had been raised under standardized conditions in captivity. Our data thus support the hypothesis that the cane toad's invasion across Australia has generated rapid evolutionary shifts in dispersal-relevant performance traits, and that these differences in performance are linked to concurrent shifts in morphological traits.</p>
Morphology of parotoid glands in cane toads
<p>If optimal investment in anti-predator defences depends on predation risk, invading new regions (and thus, encountering different predators) may favour shifts in that investment. Cane toads offer an ideal system to test this prediction: expensive anti-predator toxins are stored mainly in parotoid glands whose dimensions are easy to measure, and toad invasions have changed the suites of predators they encounter. Although plasticity may influence parotoid morphology, comparisons between parents and progeny revealed that gland dimensions were highly heritable. That heritability supports the plausibility of an evolved basis to variation in gland dimensions. Measurements of 3,779 adult toads show that females have larger glands than males, invasive populations have larger glands than in the native-range, and that parotoid sexual size dimorphism varies strongly among invaded areas. Geographic variation in parotoid morphology may be driven by predation risk to both adult toads and offspring (provisioned with toxins by their mother), with toxins allocated to eggs exacerbating the risk of cannibalism but reducing the risk of interspecific predation. Investment into chemical defences has evolved rapidly during the cane toad's international diaspora, consistent with the hypothesis that organisms flexibly adjust resource allocation to anti-predator tactics in response to novel challenges.</p>
Data from: Behavioural tactics used by invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina) to exploit apiaries in Australia
Behavioural flexibility plays a key role in facilitating the ability of invasive species to exploit anthropogenically-created resources. In Australia, invasive cane toads (Rhinella marina) often gather around commercial beehives (apiaries), whereas native frogs do not. To document how toads use this resource, we spool-tracked cane toads in areas containing beehives and in adjacent natural habitat without beehives, conducted standardized observations of toad feeding behaviour, and ran prey-manipulation trials to compare the responses of cane toads versus native frogs to honeybees as potential prey. Toads feeding around beehives travelled shorter distances per night, and hence used different microhabitats, than did toads from nearby control sites without beehives. The toads consumed live bees from the hive entrance (rather than dead bees from the ground), often climbing on top of one another to gain access to the hive entrance. Prey manipulation trials confirm that bee movement is the critical stimulus that elicits the toads' feeding response; and in standardized trials, native frogs consumed bees less frequently than did toads. In summary, cane toads flexibly modify their movements, foraging behaviour and dietary composition to exploit the nutritional opportunities created by commercial beehives, whereas native anurans do not.
Data from: Directional dispersal has not evolved during the cane toad invasion
1. The ability to disperse along a consistent compass heading strongly affects the rate and efficiency of an animal's displacement, and thus is under selection at the expanding edge of a biological invasion. 2. We used radiotelemetry to assess whether the dispersal direction of cane toads (Rhinella marina) changed as a function of time since invasion, by comparing (i) toads at a single site monitored annually for 10 years subsequent to toad arrival; (ii) toads collected from sites across the species' invaded range in Australia, and radiotracked at a common site; and (iii) the offspring of those transported toads that were reared in captivity under common-garden conditions. 3. The first of these data sets showed non-random directionality, indicating strong spatial sorting operating on this trait: toads moved in a north-westerly direction for the first 6 years post-invasion, but in random directions thereafter. Despite the evidence for trait sorting, no consistent directionality was seen in toads relocated from populations with different invasion histories nor in their offspring. Why do we see no evolutionary shifts? 4. Dispersal directionality of the offspring was not correlated with that of their parents, arguing against a genetic basis to this behavioural trait. Thus, while an expanding invasion front creates an evolutionary pressure for animals to move in a specific direction, evolution of this trait has not occurred in this system because directionality is not heritable. 5. The observed north-westerly movements of toads at the invasion front were due to simple density differentials: in the first few years, most toads arriving at our study site originated from earlier-colonized (and hence denser) populations to the south-east.
FIGURE 3 in The cane or marine toad, Rhinella marina (Anura, Bufonidae): two genetically and morphologically distinct species
FIGURE 3. Statistical parsimony network for the Rhinella marina species complex in northern Venezuela based on concatenated ND3+CR mitochondrial haplotypes. The left branches correspond to western populations and the right branches to eastern populations. Connections between haplotypes correspond to one mutational step and small dots indicate additional mutational steps.
FIGURE 4 in The cane or marine toad, Rhinella marina (Anura, Bufonidae): two genetically and morphologically distinct species
FIGURE 4. Trees showing phylogenetic relationships for the Rhinella marina species complex in northern Venezuela. Phylogenetic relationships are inferred from 429bp fragment of the ND3 (a) and 737bp for CR (b). The names refer to the location where the haplotype was collected and east and west to their location in relation the Andean Cordillera, as in Figure 1. The numbers at the nodes indicate maximum likelihood, maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference bootstrap values (ML/ MP/BI).
FIGURE 1 in The cane or marine toad, Rhinella marina (Anura, Bufonidae): two genetically and morphologically distinct species
FIGURE 1. Geographic distribution of Rhinella marina populations sampled for two mitochondrial markers and morphometric landmarks across the Andean cordillera in northern Venezuela. The circles indicate locations of specimens sequenced in this study and the squares indicate locations associated to previously published sequences used in this study. Black circles and squares correspond to eastern populations and white circles and squares to western populations. The geographic coordinates of localities are given in Table 1. The genetic distances between western and eastern populations (grey) are greater than between western populations (black) or between eastern populations (white) (see text for details).
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