Rob Puschendorf, who recently joined our group as a lecturer, introduces himself... Moving from the extreme heat of the Australian tropical summer to the English ‘spring’ this year was welcome change. After having spent the last six years in tropical north Queensland studying amphibian disease, ecology and evolution, a new job as a lecturer at Plymouth University was a complete and welcome change of scenery. I am very excited about teaching and developing exciting research projects with students, and am looking forward to working in Latin America again, where I am originally from.
I grew up in Costa Rica - a small tropical
paradise - and became enchanted by all wildlife around me, but especially the
amphibians. Costa Rica has an incredible diversity of them, with around 200
species of amphibians in 51,000 km2, which is less than half the
size of England. My research interests surround the ecological and evolutionary
consequences of the mass amphibian die-offs in tropical areas, which are linked
to a disease known as chytridiomycosis (though often shortened to chytrid).
Recently I have
focused on the importance of environmental conditions in determining the
frequency and likelihood of these frog disease outbreaks, including across
environmental gradients. In doing so, I have found that dry forests act as an
environmental refuge from disease-driven amphibian extinctions, both in Costa
Rica and tropical Australia.
However, perhaps the
most exciting part of my research has been the rediscovery of frog species that
were thought to be extinct. As part of my future work, I will focus on
exploring more areas of Australia and Costa Rica for amphibian species thought
to be extinct, focussing on potential refuge areas. I am also looking into how
frog populations may recover from a disease outbreak.
Some recent
publications about my work in Australia can be found here
Below are a selection of pictures of some of the animals I have worked with over the years. See who can ID them?
Some pictures from Costa Rica
Some pictures from Australia:
No comments:
Post a Comment