as small as a world and as large as alone

4:29pm July 8, 2013

megachiropteran:

oliviatheelf:

Someone had messaged me earlier about my little frog rant and told me about these ads. I would definitely like to thank www.the-feminine-fiasco.tumblr.com for helping me out because frogs are a massive part of our ecosystem and I would just like to say that I love them so much and they’re so cute. Frogs are actually becoming less and less populated. There are species like the Desert Rain Frog that are being killed every single day and going extinct. Things like killing them for their legs, building houses on their ecosystems, stealing them for zoos, and road-making have become a huge reason why several species are dying off. Without frogs, we will live in a crazy world of bugs. 

There is also the chytrid fungus, which has devastated amphibian populations (frogs, salamanders, anything with permeable skin) for the past two decades or so, oftentimes killing every single amphibian in the wetland. This has probably been the most devastating thing to amphibians in terms of population. Other major predators of the same insects as frogs are bats, which in North America have also been experiencing massive declines in population due to another fungus, white-nose syndrome. The combined effect of climate change causing sea level rise, more precipitation which leads to increased breeding grounds for mosquitoes and then the massive simultaneous die-off of two very important predators of mosquitoes means we will probably be seeing more instances of eastern equine encephalitis (EEE) and West Nile virus, both deadly diseases to humans that are transmitted by mosquitoes.

The most troubling thing about all of this is that fungi are very hard to control or treat and additionally have upwards of 100% mortality for infected individuals. In the coming years, we most certainly will see an increase in mosquito activity especially in areas close to the coasts, which also happens to be areas with larger concentrations of human populations.

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