# In Bocas...



## Afemoralis (Mar 17, 2005)

Hi.

I'm currently in Bocas del Toro for work, and it looks like I might have a chance to take a day to run over to Bastimentos to check out the "red frogs". If anyone has specific questions about habitat or the like, I'll see if I can get good photos. I'd really like to get to Popa to try to find D. claudiae, but I don't think it is going to happen this trip.

Seeing all of the development around here is truly depressing. I've mentioned this before, but I do think that frog-folk should be making a more concerted effort at the protection of the habitats thier critters are coming from (Or came from originally. And I don't mean OU or Germany). The "arc" idea is a noble one, but the most notable thing that we can do is vote with the dollar- the one language that everybody understands. 

How 'bout a voluntary "habitat-tax" on frog sales- breeders add $5 that goes directly to purchasing dendro-important property (like in Bocas, or Peru). 

Just an idea, but maybe worth kicking around.


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## Afemoralis (Mar 17, 2005)

*Productive day at Bastimentos...*

Hi.

This is sad. I'm replying to my own post. Oh well. I just got back from 6 hours sitting in the forest on Bastimentos. Lots of fun watching the frogs- pumilio, as well as loads of Colostethus hopping around the leaf litter, the occasional Phyllobates, and a small species of toad. Good botanizing too- epiphytic utricularia, and several genera of bromeliads, not to mention the orchids and all the wild aroids. 

I'll post pictures once I'm back in the states.


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## Derek Benson (Feb 19, 2004)

In reply to your "habitat-tax". I think it'd be better jsut to open up donations for it. People would be more willing to contriute freely, rather than forced to when buying frogs. Just a thought.


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## Afemoralis (Mar 17, 2005)

*Bastimentos Development*

Just had an interesting after-dinner conversation with a few folks here in Bocas. They were a US expat couple who have moved down here- he runs a construction company. I had not realized just how much of Bastimentos is currently underdevelopment. I had previously thought that much of the Island was under protection as part of the Marine Reserve. Not quite. Right next door to the famous "Red Frog Beach," the next 700 Acres are currently being built up into "The Red Frog Beach Club." Much of the rest of the island is also already leased. Where I sat this morning watching D. pumilio call and court, and Colostethus bring tadpoles to treeholes, will be condos and beach houses by the next time I am back in the islands. Painful thought.


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## Guest (Jun 2, 2005)

I would be interested in seeing pictures more of the areas with development. I have not been there for a few years now, and I had heard that the development was going to be severe. From what I heard though, the prices of lots were somewhere around $500,000 each, so no $5 tax would help that. What would be better is to get concerted efforts to protect areas right now that do not need protection as of yet. People could buy larger quantities of land at much more competitive prices rather than getting 2 acres of super expensive land. Areas in Peru, some in Ecuador, or Colombia would be great-- even perhaps we need to think of such areas as French Guiana, Guiana, Brazil, etc while they are still fairly unadulterated. 
j


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## Afemoralis (Mar 17, 2005)

*Bocas destruction...*

I've posted a few jpegs in a gallery of the Bastimentos frogs and the development site. (User galleries > Afemoralis > Bocas 2005) Unfortunately I have to agree- prices are probably well beyond what our contributions could preserve at this point. So where do we start our dendro-friendly land trust? I don't know Colombia at all- though it seems very appealing. Peru is accessible, though better known, and Ecuador is cheap. So how do we make this happen?


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## Blort (Feb 5, 2005)

Probably the best bet is to try and work through an organization like the Nature Conservancy. They specialize in things very much like this and also fund research.


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## Guest (Jun 3, 2005)

Or you can do it like me and meet a nice ecuadorian girl and dream of getting out of the us in a few years. 8)


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## Afemoralis (Mar 17, 2005)

*DIY preserves...*

I think that we'd be better off doing it ourselves as a community- or at least get it started before turning the project over to a larger organization like TNC. We know what we are interested in, and I'm afraid that an umbrella group like TNC would lose track of the dendro-specific goals.


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## AlexanderStubbs (Feb 18, 2004)

Another point is that pumilio are fairly tolerant of disturbed habitat, when I was down there this past summer you could find them more easily in people’s gardens than primary forest. Perhaps our efforts would be better focused on a species such as granuliferus that has very narrow parameters for acceptable habitat. Also, about Bocas, I personally do not see that it is in that much danger due to hotel developments, in some cases, eco-tourism seems much better than the alternative of clearing the islands for farmland.

Alexander


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## Guest (Jun 13, 2005)

I agree with Alexander that D. pumilio do well in disturbed sites, even better than in say secondary forest. However, it is how they go about doing the construction that would be the hardest to deal with. If they flatten a huge area and start building over time, there is very little way that the frogs can deal with that. If they build one house at a time and build nice gardens as buffers between them, then I think the chances of the natural plasticity of D. pumilio carrying them through is pretty high. Lord knows if they just littered the area with sauce cups they would probably even be ok. Things I really worry about as far as construction are like D. granuliferus that are tied strongly to certian areas and need a set environment to live and breed. They would not react nearly as well to the same development as D. pumilio would. 
j


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

Yeager said:


> I agree with Alexander that D. pumilio do well in disturbed sites, even better than in say secondary forest. However, it is how they go about doing the construction that would be the hardest to deal with. If they flatten a huge area and start building over time, there is very little way that the frogs can deal with that. If they build one house at a time and build nice gardens as buffers between them, then I think the chances of the natural plasticity of D. pumilio carrying them through is pretty high. Lord knows if they just littered the area with sauce cups they would probably even be ok. Things I really worry about as far as construction are like D. granuliferus that are tied strongly to certian areas and need a set environment to live and breed. They would not react nearly as well to the same development as D. pumilio would.
> j


Justin, you have hit the nail on the head regarding many development/conservation issues. There seems to be an assumption that areas can be nuked during development and then rehabilitated afterward. Rehabilitation often means just replacing the dominant vegetation types (in the past it didn't even have to be native) and then assuming that the other parts of the biological community will re-establish. This mentality has been bolstered by the reappearance of bird species which makes people say "see, the birds came back". Well birds have wings damnit. The June 2005 issue of Frontiers in Ecology has a literature review that shows that areas that have been altered by clearcutting or agriculture and then left to recover remain biologically depauperate even after centuries of recovery. The authors cite evidence that this is due to limitations in species dispersal distances and they stress the to maintain interspersed patches of intact habitat to provide sources for species recovery. So I think your suggestions are spot on that if development were done right, the pumilio could recover and may even find the restort gardens even better habitat than before but if there are no pumilio left to recover, then the result seems obvious.


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## Afemoralis (Mar 17, 2005)

Allright- so lets say that D.pumilio fitness is actually enhanced in gardens on Bastimentos due to breeding site availability. Don't you think that these rather radical changes in habitat are going to change the selection pressures acting on the frogs- maybe even change the selection factors that have caused the radiation in morphotype across the archipelago?

Second, disregarding the pumilio for a moment, there are at least 3 other species of Dendrobatid on the island. Shouldn't we be concerned with them as well? Especially with the discovery of D. claudiae on Popa, I think the importance of the archipelago to the family as a whole has been well demonstrated. Nobody has ever suggested that the Colostethus, or Phyllobates, or other Dendrobates are going to thrive as garden gnomes.

I guess my point is that when areas like Bastimentos get cleared there is only one group that really wins: the fat cat developers. Not the frogs and not the locals. If we want the frogs to thrive in nature as well as in captivity- as I would propose is our responsibility as a hobby, then we need to take on a more active role in preserving habitat.


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## Guest (Jun 15, 2005)

I could not agree more, especially with taking account that there are more than just D. pumilio, and more than just frogs to take into account on this island. The people have been getting screwed over for at least 20 years, but what will the construction do to the water quality in the reefs around that area, moreover, everything else on the island. That heavy machinery will not be kind. I liked the older style houses and shacks that used to dominate the island. I think the most valuable thing you could do in a timely manner would be to ask permission to plant corridors for the animals to move, and try to rebuild habitat ASAP. I am very busy here in Ecuador or I would go right away to help-- perhaps there is another student who has the summer off who could take control of this project. Perhaps I can check on the site in Sept.
j


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## bbrock (May 20, 2004)

You guys are too cool! I was really hoping that this thread would head in the direction you took it and you didn't let me down. Would conversion to gardens change the selective pressures on pumilio? Most likely. I would say absolutely but it is possible that gardens are functionally very equivalent to the frog's "native" preferred habitat (early to mid seral stage shrub and herbaceous undestory with an established overstory). Should we be concerned? You bet! Are there other critters to worry about? Yes! Anytime we alter landscapes there are winner and losers among the wildlife inhabitants. Typically animal diversity goes down and you start seeing the same human tolerant species move in that are becoming ubiquitous in the world. The species that benefit usually do so at the expense of less tolerant natives. But these issues are VERY important to understand because if a group tries to influence development by saying the development will harm the red frogs, then that group will lose all credibility when in fact the develop results in no change or even increases in the red frogs. I see that in my area when people claim that their housing developments are good for wildlife because they have lots of white-tailed deer, elk and black bears in their yards. But where are the long-tailed weasle, mountain lion, and grizzly bears, and mule deer that were there before? There are winners and losers and the public and planners need to be made aware of the trade-offs that can happen. And Justin, connectivity is the name of the game so you nailed it again. Until recently people thought if we just set aside the relict patches of habitat everything would be wonderful but you have to connect that stuff together. Local extinctions are a natural part of most ecosystems but in a healthy function ecosystem, if a species goes extinct in a patch of habitat, it will get re-established by individuals moving in from another piece of habitat. The way we typically develop things these days breaks those connections so the natural temporary extinctions now become permanent and we just call that the price of progress. But what is frustrating is that corridors often don't have to be huge swaths of land and the same features that make good corridors also tend to make areas more pleasant for humans.

Hey, I have a moose in my yard! My house must be good for wildlife :wink:


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