# Paper of the Month: November 2015



## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

Alright! Let's see how this goes. This is a shorty, and an easy one to start with. As such, if we want to do two papers this month, that's fine. We can all try and figure out what the next one will be in this thread, as well as discuss any thoughts or questions about this paper here. Or just mine it for other papers as it's pretty basic  But, cheers all, and happy reading. 

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aalas/jaalas/2005/00000044/00000006/art00002?crawler=true


----------



## easternversant (Sep 4, 2012)

Can you explain how this works? I think that might help people...


----------



## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

Sure. The idea is to have a 'paper of the month', that is publicly available, that we here on DB read, discuss, ask questions over if you don't understand sections or ideas, etc etc. It's good fun, good practice for keeping up on the latest scientific literature, and can only make us better, more informed keepers. This thread, and subsequent ones will be hopefully decided upon by a group consensus, and can be on just about anything related to dendrobatids. Hydrophyte would also like us to include plant papers here, which I'm all for. See this thread for a slightly more detailed discussion of the purpose of these threads: http://www.dendroboard.com/forum/science-conservation/256538-paper-month.html


----------



## ryangreenway (Apr 30, 2010)

I think the best way to implement this might be to follow the format that most journal clubs at universities follow. The person who picks the paper provides a short synopsis of the article, then poses 3-5 questions to the group (regarding the applicability of the methods, what the results show, how the authors interpret the results, possible implications, etc.) in the hopes of fostering a good discussion.


----------



## ryangreenway (Apr 30, 2010)

Also, to more widely distribute papers that may not be open access we could generate an email list. I have institutional access to just about any journal out there and can find the PDFs should we need them and email them out.


----------



## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

We could, I'm still not really clear on what's going to violate copyright laws or not. I have institutional access as well, and don't mind sending out papers, but I'm not sure how legal that is. And I'm all for posting some questions as well and synopsis of the article. This is our first go with this, so I'm sure it will get better as we go on. I'd just like to know people are actually reading it for starters though


----------



## a hill (Aug 4, 2007)

I believe you should be fine in terms of it being for non-commercial use and for educational purposes. Ed would be the person to ask. 

If not, people who are seriously interested could subscribe to the journals or something. 

Maybe explore a dendroboard member access agreement?

-Andrew


----------



## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

I'd like to keep this thread specific to this particular paper if possible. For discussions of how we want to proceed, lets use the other thread.


----------



## alogan (Jan 7, 2013)

Love this idea! We should all also get together in Portland sometime and grab beers/discuss dart frogs.


----------



## Celtic Aaron (Jun 12, 2013)

Great read! Thanks for sharing that. Love the idea, and will only help make us better and more informed.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## OrangeTyrant (May 12, 2011)

I agree with Ryan about posing some questions/discussion points, as I think that is what is stymieing discussion here, but I'll throw one out there from this article. 



In the discussion on Laboratory Husbandry, the authors suggest that a 20 gallon terrarium can comfortably accommodate 4-5 adult frogs, and while they acknowledge that several dendrobatid species are territorial, there's not much justification mentioned behind their conclusion that 465 cubic centimeters is adequate per frog, other than a vague "in our experience".

I know that enclosure sizes are always frequently debated and are a hot topic of conversation, but it would have been nice to see some more evidence such as weight gains/losses, activity level observations, hiding/wrestling behaviors, etc. mentioned with different cohabitation densities. 

While we can likely all agree that bigger is better, their are always limitations in laboratory settings, and minimums should be established. Each of our individual experience will vary, and whether the reader agrees with the actual concluded size of 465 cubic centimeters or not, my question is what specifically in their experience indicated this particular number?


----------



## tardis101 (Apr 11, 2012)

Nice idea. Will we be looking at just peer reviewed articles or is anything up for grabs?


----------



## ZookeeperDoug (Jun 5, 2011)

Good basic article, a bit dated, but generally speaking sound husbandry advice.

If anything, it's a good demonstration of how far we have come in 10 years since this was written.


----------



## MasterOogway (Mar 22, 2011)

OrangeTyrant said:


> I agree with Ryan about posing some questions/discussion points, as I think that is what is stymieing discussion here, but I'll throw one out there from this article.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Agree about the first part; maybe whoever is going to post the next article can come up with some questions relating to it? 

As far as their husbandry goes, I'm sure their goals and ours are probably going to be different. Many times the studies that they work on are probably not long term; they're looking for maximum specimens to work with, without probably having to consider long term 'health' of the individuals. They're either there just to extract alkaloids, or something of that nature. Sure, they have to pass an IACUC mustard, as it were, but past that I doubt the well-being of the specimens is first in their minds. They're going for a bare bones style functional housing system, where we're on the other side of the spectrum. Hell, most of us can go weeks without seeing some of our frogs due to the construction style of our enclosures.


----------

