Detect abnormal <em>Bombina orientalis</em> nearby human active area — ASN Events

Detect abnormal Bombina orientalis nearby human active area (#856)

Yu jin Shin 1 , Changku Kang 1 , Ye Eun Kim 1 , Yikweon Jang 1
  1. Interdisciplinary program of Ecocreative, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, South Korea

Bombina orientalis field work has progressed over 12 areas in South Korea. 213 frogs were sampled from 10 populations. Among the 213 individuals, 19 individuals showed abnormal body parts (8.9%). Most of the disabilities affected the legs and fingers of toads which didn`t develop well in metamorphosis stage. This is a meaningful result because natural deformity rates of most frogs is approximately 2%. We measured the distance between habitats of B. orientalis and the nearest human activity area from satellite images. Buildings, paddies and roadways were considered as human activity area. We correlated  the log distance to human activity with the proportion of abnormal toads in each habitat. We also compared the proportion of human activity area in a radius of 300m with each habitat as the center and rate of abnormal toads in each habitat. Significant relationships were found between human activity levels and abnormality rates of adult frogs. There are more abnormal toads in the habitats that are closer to the human-active areas. Also the rate of frog abnormality increased when there was more human-active area in a radius of 300m. These results suggest that higher human activity level in a region has a negative impact on the abnormality levels in B. orientalis.

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