Research & Development
By following toads and recording their locations with a GPS, ARC scientists will see how adult toads react to habitat fragmentation related to industrial activity, such as road building.
They may think they’re just hopping around, but Boreal toads with tiny radios strapped to their backs are telling scientists how toads respond to habitat fragmentation and whether industrial activity in Northern Alberta is helping them out by creating effective breeding ponds.
Brian Eaton, a scientist with the Alberta Research Council, is studying both habitat fragmentation that arises because of industrial activity on the landscape, and borrow pits – the shallow open pits that are formed when soil is removed to make roads. “They take the soil out and there’s a hole. The hole fills up with water and after a while it will become naturalized,” Eaton says.
Toads give scientists important information about
habitat needs and industrial impact
“We found that even the youngest borrow pits were used by toads,” he says. “Toads were coming to them and probably other amphibians as well, but toads were definitely coming and laying eggs.”
The trick is to see how toads survive when they start life in a borrow pit. “This is important because the Boreal toad is probably the most sensitive of the amphibian species in the area,” Eaton says. “So, if you protect habitat that supports the Boreal toad you are probably going to help other amphibian species as well.”
The toads need very particular habitat – first in the water and later on land – in order to survive. “They grow as eggs and tadpoles in the water,” says Eaton. “Then they emerge and become terrestrial so they need specific terrestrial habitat.”
And, toads require just the right habitat to get through cold Alberta winters. “They need very specific microhabitats where they can burrow down far enough, where they’re insulated well enough that they don’t freeze to death,” says Eaton.
From 2007 to 2009, Eaton and his team headed out to borrow pits in the spring and followed radio-tagged toads throughout the season. “We catch as many toads as we can and track the ones big enough to carry radios. Radios cannot weigh too much or it may change their behaviour or survival,” says Eaton. “Then we track those adults throughout the summer and hopefully into hibernation,” he says.
By following the toads and recording their locations with a GPS, Eaton will see how adult toads react to habitat fragmentation related to industrial activity, such as road building. By surveying for the presence and health of tadpoles and metamorphic toads at borrow pits, he can determine whether borrow pits are helping toads by providing extra breeding grounds or whether these pits are ecological traps. Either way, the research will provide important information about habitat needs and importance or impact of manmade features.
“There are some very clear patterns you can see. We’ll be able to say whether toads prefer a certain kind of microhabitat or kind of timber stand,” Eaton says. “It will help us say if you want to reduce the impact on populations of toads, these are the management strategies you should use.”
Eaton and his team will have completed the analysis on their data by 2010. The research is funded by Shell Canada, the Manning Diversified Forestry Research Fund, North American Waterfowl Management Plan, Alberta Conservation Association, Alberta Sport, Recreation, Parks and Wildlife Foundation, Daishowa-Marubeni International Ltd., Alberta Sustainable Resource Development, and the University of Alberta.