HOY es el día de salvar a los anuros!

Save The Frogs Day - April 30th, 2010

"This is truly an amazing resource for teachers and students. Thanks so much." -- Pam Chergotis, Managing Editor of The Chronicle.

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The 2nd Annual Save The Frogs Day (April 30th, 2010) is the single largest day of amphibian education and action in the planet's history. Save The Frogs Day events taking place in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Italy, Ireland, Madagascar, Nepal, Portugal, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the USA. Get your country involved!
Introduction

Donate To Save The FrogsIn an effort to raise awareness of the plight of amphibians, the scientific community has declared Friday April 30th, 2010 the 2nd Annual 'Save The Frogs Day'. On this day we encourage the appreciation and celebration of amphibians by people from all walks of life.

Please get involved and help spread the word! Only a small proportion of our public is aware that frogs are disappearing, and amphibian conservation efforts will not be successful with an un-informed public. Our goal is to make the amphibian extinction crisis common knowledge by Save The Frogs Day: help make it happen!

Save The Frogs Day 2010 is a de-centralized event: that means it's up to you to make something happen in your part of the universe. The frogs are depending on you. Your children and their children are depending on you. The future of the planet lies in your hands and in your actions. SAVE THE FROGS!
Sign The Petition To Get Atrazine Banned!

Please sign our petition to get the harmful herbicide Atrazine banned! Atrazine is one of the world's most common pesticides: over 80 million pounds of it were used on American crops last year, and it has been in use for 50 years. This harmful pesticide turns male frogs into females at concentrations as low as 2.5 parts per billion. Atrazine causes cancer in laboratory mammals and developmental problems in fish. Atrazine is the most commonly detected pesticide in rainwater, groundwater and tapwater in the USA. Atrazine spray gets lifted into the clouds, travels hundreds of miles and then falls down from the sky in rainwater: half a million pounds of it each year.

Frogs and humans share half our DNA, so Atrazine can't be good for humans either. That's likely why the European Union banned the harmful pesticide in 2004. But the company that produces it, Syngenta (based in Switzerland!) has $11 billion in revenues, and has a huge lobby to keep Atrazine on the market in the USA. Our goal is to get Atrazine banned by the 3rd Annual Save The Frogs Day (April 29th, 2011)!

Please sign the petition right now! We'll be sending it to Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency.

But that's not all we're going to do! Please join us in Washington, D.C. on Sunday October 24th 2010 on the International Day of Pesticide Action, an event we conceived and will coordinate with nonprofit partners around the world. We are sure that with your participation, we can rally 100,000 people to march through the streets of DC from the steps of the Capitol to the Environmental Protection Agency demanding a federal ban on Atrazine, the 21st Century's DDT. More info on the International Day of Pesticide Action is to come!

Please be sure to also ask your friends to sign the petition. Thanks, and we'll see you in Washington, D.C. on October 24th!
Save The Frogs Day Webinar

“How long do frogs live? How many types of frogs are there? What’s the difference between a frog and a toad? Why are frogs disappearing worldwide and what can be done to save them?” Save The Frogs Founder Dr. Kerry Kriger will answer all these questions and more as he introduces people around the world to The Wild World of Frogs in this inaugural Save The Frogs Day Webinar. The slideshow presentation features many of his photos of amphibians from around the world, and he will outline his vision for the future. There will be a question and answer session following the presentation.

WHEN: Friday April 30th at 2:30pm US Pacific Time.
Find out your local time here.

REGISTER: This very special Save The Frogs Day Webinar is free, but space is limited, so reserve your space now. After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

INFO: http://www.savethefrogs.com/day/index.html

El genoma de anuros conlleva una esperanza de salvación

Frog genome holds out conservation promise
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News
Xenopus tropicalis The western clawed frog joins an illustrious list of sequencees

Scientists have published the first genome sequence from an amphibian.

Xenopus tropicalis, the western clawed frog, joins the list of sequenced organisms that includes chicken, horse, rat, yeast, platypus, and human being.

It has about 20,000 genes - about the same as a human - and scientists say it sheds new light on genetic evolution.

Conservationists say analysing the genes could lead to new ways of combating threats such as the often fatal fungal disease chytridiomycosis.

Presenting their results in the journal Science, the researchers also suggest it may lead to better understanding of the threat posed by endocrine-disrupting ("gender-bending") chemicals, to which amphibians are especially sensitive.
Filling the gap

Forty-eight scientists from 20 institutions collaborated on the study, led from the US Department of Energy's Joint Genome Institute (JGI) in Walnut Creek, California.
Continue reading the main story

More detail on the genes that give resistance could have massive implications for captive breeding programmes

Robin Moore Conservation International

"When human genome work was wrapping up around 2002, we were discussing what should be next," JGI's Uffe Hellsten told BBC News.

"At that time there were a couple of furry mammals in the pipeline, and the chicken and at least two fish - but there seemed to be a gaping hole in the branch that constitutes the amphibians, and it seemed logical to fill that hole."

The species chosen - X tropicalis - is a close relative of a standard laboratory animal, the African clawed frog X laevis.

This animal has been a staple of pioneering research in fields such as cell differentiation, the role of ribonucleic acid (RNA) and cloning.

During the 1940s and 50s, their sensitivity to human hormones also led to their use in pregnancy tests.

For this project, X tropicalis was preferred because it reproduces much faster than its more famous cousin.
The chytrid fungus is devastating amphibians numbers around the world

Its genome is also roughly half the size.

That is because at some point in evolutionary history, the lineage leading to X laevis duplicated its DNA, meaning it now carries a double cargo of the double helix.

The team reports that certain regions of the genome, clustered around specific genes, are remarkably similar to equivalent regions in the genomes of chicken and Homo sapiens - despite the fact that their lineages diverged some 360 million years ago.

"When you look at segments of the Xenopus genome, you literally are looking at structures that are 360 million years old," said Dr Hellsten.

"They were part of the genome of the last common ancestor of all birds, frogs, dinosaurs and mammals that ever roamed the Earth."
Immune attack

However, it is the set of genes unique to amphibians that has excited conservationists.

For the last few decades, frogs and - to a lesser extent - salamanders have been hard hit by a water-borne fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis.

It is spreading across the world and has caused mass deaths in many species. It is implicated as the major factor in several species extinctions.
WHAT ARE AMPHIBIANS?
Continue reading the main story Salamanders

* First true amphibians evolved about 250m years ago
* Adapted to many different aquatic and terrestrial habitats
* Present today on every continent except Antarctica
* Undergo metamorphosis, from larvae to adults

Recently, scientists in several institutions have been working on a conservation strategy that would take naturally-occurring anti-chytrid chemicals from species that are immune, and use them to protect others.

Xenopus appear to be immune themselves; and unravelling the genetic blueprint of its chemical defences could perhaps help to accelerate this line of research.

"Xenopus is the genus from which chytrid was first recorded, in [a museum specimen from] 1938, and they seem to be resistant," said Robin Moore, amphibian conservation officer with Conservation International.

"More detail on the genes that give resistance could also have massive implications for captive breeding programmes, helping us select animals that are resistant."

A valuable next step, he added, would be to compare variants of these genes between amphibian species - especially from those that are highly vulnerable to chytrid.

Dr Hellsten also suggested the sequences could shed light on the mechanism of endocrine-disrupting chemicals such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) - colloquially known as "gender-benders" - which impact many animals, but amphibians in particular because of their skin's high permeability.

"Understanding the effects of these hormone disruptors will help us preserve frog diversity and, since these chemicals also affect humans, could have a positive effect on human health," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10090225.stm

La primera secuenciación completa del ADN de un anuro provee claves sobre la evolución del genoma de los vertebrados

Frog DNA Yields Clues to Vertebrate Genome Evolution
de Elizabeth Pennisi

Add another group of animals to the growing menagerie of creatures whose genomes have been sequenced. On page 633 of this week's issue of Science, researchers describe the sequence of the Western clawed frog, Xenopus tropicalis, the first member of the amphibian branch of the tree of life to be so honored. Researchers chose X. tropicalis to be the first amphibian sequenced because developmental biologists use it in their studies and it has a relatively small genome: 1.7 billion bases stretched across 10 chromosomes, about half the size of the human genome. Now, researchers are hungry for more.
Science 30 April 2010:
Vol. 328. no. 5978, p. 555
más info: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/328/5978/555

urodelos

hola chicos, va urodelos
descargar

clase 6-Anuros

Hola chicos, aqui les va la clase 6 de anuros, en 2 de sus 3 partes:
Anuros, generalidades y grupos basales: descarga
hyloides: descarga

Una rana sin pulmones

Kuala Lumpur, 22 abr (EFE).- Un equipo de científicos ha hallado una rana que respira sin pulmones en el corazón de la isla de Borneo, anunció hoy el Fondo Mundial de la Naturaleza (WWF, por su sigla en inglés).

Los científicos ya conocían a la rana "Barbourula kalimantanensis", pero esta expedición científica comprobó que la especie en Borneo carece de pulmones y respira a través de los poros de la piel.

El llamado corazón de Borneo comprende una área de 220.000 kilómetros cuadrados que Brunei, Indonesia y Malasia crearon en febrero de 2007 para proteger uno de los últimos bosques vírgenes del planeta.

El director de la iniciativa el Corazón de Borneo del WWF, Adam Tomasek, destacó en un comunicado la importancia de conservar para las futuras generaciones este área de bosque húmedo irreemplazable.

Tomasek añadió que tres años de investigación científica independiente han permitido encontrar nuevas formas de vida y prometen descubrimientos asombrosos en el futuro. EFE

Una rana australiana "extinta" reaparece luego de 30 años de no dar señales

Mar 4, 2010
"Extinct" Australian frog reappears 30 years after last sighting"
By John Platt

The yellow-spotted bell frog (Litoria castanea), last observed in 1970s, has long been thought to be extinct in the wild. Scientists believed it was probably a victim of the deadly chytrid fungus that has devastated amphibian populations around the world.

But last year, Luke Pearce, a fisheries conservation officer in the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW), thought he saw a yellow-spotted bell frog in an isolated stream where he was looking for another endangered species. He returned a year later with herpetologist David Hunter of the NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water. Together, they found a population of around 100 adult frogs.

They also found tadpoles, six of which were collected and raised to maturity. The six frogs have now been placed in a captive breeding program at Taronga Zoo in the Sydney suburb of Mosman.

"This was definitely the most exciting moment of my career and I will be surprised if I repeat it," Hunter told the AFP news service.

So why did this one isolated population survive when all other yellow-spotted bell frogs have disappeared? Hunter thinks the population could have some sort of resistance to the chytrid fungus, although he says it is too early to speculate if that is true, or why.

Interestingly, despite the amount of time since the frog had been seen in the wild, the Australian government never gave up on it. A formal recovery plan for the species has been in place since 2001.

The location where the pair discovered the frogs has not been disclosed to protect the remaining habitat.

Image: Yellow-spotted bell frog, © Gordon Grigg, via the New South Wales Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water

Hoy es el día de nuestra Pacha

El Día de la Tierra es un día festivo celebrado en muchos países el 22 de abril.
Es un día para crear una conciencia común a los problemas que le causamos, la conservación de la biodiversidad y otras preocupaciones ambientales para protegerla.

La historia nos cuenta que la primera manifestación tuvo lugar el 22 de abril de 1970, promovida por el senador y activista ambiental Gaylord Nelson (EEUU), para la creación de una agencia ambiental. En esta convocatoria participaron dos mil universidades estadounidenses, diez mil escuelas primarias y secundarias y centenares de comunidades. La presión social tuvo sus logros y el gobierno de los Estados Unidos creó la Environmental Protection Agency (Agencia de Protección Ambiental) y una serie de leyes destinada a la protección del medio ambiente.

Sin embargo también hay otra historia... desde tiempos ancestrales muchas comunidades aborigenes de los Andes Suramericanos ya celebraban el 1 Agosto de todo los año el dia y todo ese mes dedicado a dar gracias a la Pachamama (Madre Tierra en Quechua).

* El Día de la Tierra es una fiesta que pertenece a la gente y no está regulada por una sola entidad u organismo; tampoco está relacionado con reivindicaciones políticas, nacionales, religiosas, ideológicas ni raciales.

* En el Día de la Tierra se reflexiona sobre la importancia del vital líquido que es indispensable para la vida del ser humano como lo es el agua, ya que de toda el agua que existe en el planeta tan solo en 2% es bebible.

* El Día de la Tierra apunta a la toma de conciencia de los recursos naturales de la Tierra y su manejo, a la educación ambiental, y a la participación como ciudadanos ambientalmente conscientes y responsables.

* En el Día de la Tierra todos estamos invitados a participar en actividades que promuevan la salud de nuestro planeta, tanto a nivel global como regional y local.

* "La Tierra es nuestro hogar y el hogar de todos los seres vivos. La Tierra misma está viva. Somos partes de un universo en evolución. Somos miembros de una comunidad de vida interdependiente con una magnificente diversidad de formas de vida y culturas. Nos sentimos humildes ante la belleza de la Tierra y compartimos una reverencia por la vida y las fuentes de nuestro ser..."

Páginas relacionadas

Chicos
les agregamos una serie de páginas relacionadas a los anfibios y reptiles. Esperamos que les sean de utilidad, pese a que en su mayoría están en inglés. Y justamente por esto, también les pusimos el enlace a un traductor.
Saludos,
Cecilia

clase 3

hola gente, aquí les va la clase 3 para descargar. El jueves veremos esta clase y expondrán las lecturas que les dejé. Si tienen dudas consúltenme a mi dirección de email. Saludos. descargar

clase 1: Intro a la Sistemática

Aqui tienen la clase 1: Descarga

clase 2 versión final

Hola, aqui esta el pdf de la clase 2 para bajar. Es la version definitiva. descarga