Most of the common snake species around Fogg Dam are actually MORE abundant now than they were in the years before cane
toads arrived, based on a huge amount of information gathered by Dr Greg Brown in his nightly surveys (walking across the Fogg dam wall and recording snake numbers just about every night, for 5 years before and after
toads arrived!).
Ben then moved to Fogg Dam for his postdoctoral work, just in time to start gathering information before
the toads arrived.
Contrary to lots of people's expectations, the numbers of frogs didn't change when
the toads arrived.
Once
toads arrived, and people began to realize that many of their beloved native species were not really affected, the revulsion against toads began to decrease.
So, toads ARE an ecological problem - but only for a fairly small number of species (the big predators) and fortunately, Queensland populations of many of those species (like yellow - spotted goannas and northern quolls) are recovering, a few decades after
the toads arrived and really reduced the predator numbers.
The main results that are emerging fit well with several other studies that have been done, including our own (Matt Greenlees estimated frog numbers before and after
the toads arrived at Fogg Dam).
He's been based up at Fogg Dam for about ten years now, since before
toads arrived, and has gathered very detailed information about the native fauna before and after toad invasion, as well as about the day - to - day lives of toads.
What kinds of characteristics would help a predator to survive after the cane
toads arrive?
At Fogg Dam itself, Professor Thomas Madsen and Dr Bea Ujvari (University of Wollongong) have been marking and radio - tracking goannas, to understand what happens when
toads arrive.
So, we know that predators large enough to tackle a large adult toad are in big trouble when
the toads arrive.
Second, many frog - eating predators die when
the toads arrive (after all, cane toads are basically acting as booby - trapped frogs, from a predator's point of view)-- and so, survival rates of frogs tend to increase not decrease when
the toads arrive.
In northeastern New South Wales, at the southern front of the toad invasion, Chris Jolly has found similar dramatic declines in lizard numbers when
toads arrive in an area.
Many people think it's a catastrophe when
toads arrive - but what is the evidence?
Not exact matches
Its habitat withered after the Kihansi River was dammed in 2000, and then chytrid
arrived; the
toad has not been seen in the wild since 2003.
Ecologist Richard Shine of the University of Sydney in Australia, a co-author of the chicken study, has been studying how cane
toads affect native fauna since 2004, when the invaders
arrived at his long - term research site east of Darwin.
Any fire salamanders that
arrive from elsewhere will likely get infected by newts or
toads.
But we have to be realistic — trucks will keep
arriving in Sydney, and some of them will contain cane
toads.
When the
toads first
arrived at Fogg Dam, we found quite a few dead predators, of a range of species.
One of the reasons why
toad numbers seem to decline a few years after
toads first
arrive in a place, may be an increase in the numbers of hungry water - beetles in search of a tasty snack!
From work by Professor Thomas Madsen and Dr Beata Ujvari at Fogg Dam, as well as Dr Greg Brown's regular counts, we know that most of the big floodplain goannas were killed by trying to eat
toads, within a year or so of the
toads first
arriving.
Matt Greenlees conducted detailed comparisons of these and other frog species in areas where
toads haven't yet
arrived, where they
arrived recently, and where they have been present for quite a few years - and he found that Dahl's Aquatic Frog has managed to deal with cane
toads in the same ways as other frog species have done.
Keith has conducted studies on many of these species to see how they deal with the highly seasonal rainfall (and thus, food supply) in the «wet - dry» tropics, and has expanded this work to include the cane
toads that have
arrived recently.
Once
arriving at the island's main port, it becomes clear that the Koopa King's army is draining the land and its inhabitants of color, leaving desolately white environments and comatose
Toads in their wake.
But then an evil
toad named Mamu
arrives and turns the machine into a nightmare machine.