While in the past much of the research on frogs in Australia was conducted on public lands, a rise in citizen science has increased access to data on frogs found on private lands, revealing a surprising number of threatened species, The Conversation reported in an article shared on Phys.org.
Jodi Rowley and Grace Gillard detailed the results of their study. "In our research, we analyzed the 496,357 frog records logged in NSW on FrogID between 2017 and 2024," they said.
According to their findings, 86% of the records came from private lands. They found a higher diversity of frog species there than on public lands, including two species that were found only on private land.
One of the great benefits of citizen science is that residents have access to areas after rains, when many of the roads that researchers might use are flooded and impassable. This is the time when frogs are most likely to be active since the area is wet, so residents who are already there are best positioned to get a snapshot of the local wildlife.
And they did: Twenty of the 24 threatened species in New South Wales were recorded on private land, and some of them were even more likely to be found on private land than on public land, including Sloane's froglet and the green and golden bell frog, a species that has been affected by the deadly chytrid fungus.
The researchers not only celebrated the efforts of citizen scientists but also encouraged readers to continue documenting frogs they encounter. "Recording and uploading the calls of any frogs you hear using the FrogID app is a simple and effective way of adding to our collective knowledge of these remarkable amphibians," they said. "The more data sources we have, the better."
Other rare and delicate species, such as salamanders, are also being tracked using citizen science.
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