Visible implant elastomer success in early larval stages of a tropical amphibian species
Access the peer-reviewed article here: https://peerj.com/articles/9630/
When we observe animals, be it in the jungle, under water, or even in your own back yard, we learn to recognize individuals over time. Maybe you know your neighbourhood squirrel because it has a ripped ear, or you notice a butterfly because it has a unique pattern. This process, the act of distinguishing individuals, is fundamental in behavioral research.
But what do you do when all of your individuals within a population look similar?
In this study, I attempted (along with one of my best friends, Guillermo Garcia-Costoya and my advisor Bibiana Rojas) to tag young poison frog tadpoles with fluorescent elastomer tags. This is especially interesting because, to date, tropical larval amphibians had never been tagged; further, we marked the smallest and youngest amphibious animal ever recorded.
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Now you see me, now you don’t:
When tracking tags across development we find that the probability of retention and observation differ across time. This means that just because someone didn’t observe the tag doesn’t mean that the tag is actually lost. This is important to take into account when working with mark-recapture studies.
What’s so cool about elastomers is that they’re small and durable. We now have work showing that we can tag tiny little tadpoles (before they have cool back patterns or are transported by their fathers!) and find out where they are carried or even how tadpole communities change over time in small water holdings. This methodology will hopefully be of use to future biologists who working in conservation or on behavior in the tropics.
Chloe Fouilloux 