User:Elwhoelwu/Moor frog

Distribution and habitat
The moor frog’s range covers a large majority of Europe and Asia. Its east-west range extends from northeastern France and northern Belgium all the way to the Lena River in Siberia. Its north-south range extends as far north as the 69th parallel in Finland—where the sun is visible for 24 hours during the summer solstice, and as far south as the Pannonian basin in Central Europe. The moor frog can be found in a wide range of altitudes. In the western region of its range the moor frog can be found as high up as 900 meters above sea level, and in the eastern portion the moor frog can be found as high up as 2000 meters in the Altai. Within this geographical range the moor frog is often found in bodies of still water with littoral vegetation and pH below 6. The diversity of habitats demonstrates the frog’s plasticity towards habitat.

Historial Distribution
The earliest fossil record of the moor frog extends back to between the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene found in Dvorníky-Včeláre, Slovakia. Other fossil records of the moor frog from the early Pleistocene were found on land that is inside the modern range of the moor frog. Fossil records from the middle Pleistocene demonstrate the range extended as far south as south-central France and as far west as the eastern coast of the Great Britain. Records from the late Pleistocene show the range extended as far south as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Azerbaijan.

Romania
The moor frog calls various regions of Romania home. There are three main regions where moor frog can be found in Romania. The first is the Transylvanian region which includes the Western Plains, the Transylvanian Plateau, and the Eastern Carpathians. The second region is northern part of Romanian Moldavia. The third and smallest region is the Tisa River Basin—north of Maramureș. The largest Romanian population of moor frog in lives in the Western Plains. The population of moor frog in Romanian Moldavia is isolated from the populations in Transylvania.

Most populations of moor frog in Romania are isolated and not contiguous. Each population may have 200-400 adults; however, exceptional populations of 2000 adults have been found as well. Populations are isolated because of edge effects of human developments. Most Romanian populations of moor frog can be found between 108-414 meters  above sea level. Exceptional populations have been found to exist at 740 meters above sea level.

In Romania the moor frog is known to live in humid habitats that border land with human activity. such as flooded agricultural fields, ditches on the side of roads, small canals and streams, and human settlements. The moor frog is sparingly found in habitats with little human activity. Swamps are one of the few habitats with little human activity that host moor frogs.

Conservation
The 2009 IUCN Red List status of the moor frog does not properly reflect the current declining nature of the moor frog. There is lack a general lack of research on the conservation status of the moor frog in many EU member states and in-range countries. However, a European Habitats Directive performed in 2013 revealed that 19 of the 28 member states of the time reported that conservation status of the moor frog were unfavorable. 11 of the 19 said that their status was in decline as well. It is known that existing populations in Europe are small in number which indicate a significant loss of genetic diversity. This lack of genetic diversity threatens the current stability of populations and long-term survival because of the increased risk of inbreeding.

France
The moor frog is considered nearly extinct in France where the western limit of the moor frog range sits. There are only four remaining isolated populations in France. These four were once a contiguous metapopulation. In France, moor frog habitat is limited and of poor quality due significant human development that encroaches on and destroys moor frog habitat. Edge effects of human developments also fragment and degrade remaining habitat. The current population sizes are small enough where mild inbreeding greatly reduces MF fitness.

Conservation Efforts
Acidification, eutrophication, and other forms of water pollution dealt to the aquatic habitats moor frog’s call home, exacerbate their already critical condition. Moor frogs enjoy acidic environments; however, peat bogs which provide these acidic conditions have poor buffering properties that make them susceptible to drastic decreases of pH even below 4.5. At pH below 4.5 the moor frog can no longer reproduce. There are various conservation practices being attempted. Liming of peat bogs by adding chalk can increase pH. While this method may allow for moor frog reproduction to occur, the effect is only temporary, and acidification will ultimately occur again. Protection and addition of riparian zones by preventing grazing and replanting littoral vegetation aids the rewetting process of drained land. Drainage of land for agriculture is especially dangerous to moor frog because they are prone to desiccation. Conservation efforts done for the moor frog are most effective when executed in small scale phases that are more easily managed and receive more attention.

Diet
An adult moor frog’s diet consists of any mobile and terrestrial animals that they can physically ingest. moor frog most commonly consume beetles; however, other insects from the orders hemiptera (true bugs), hymenoptera, and diptera (flies) are consumed as well. Non-insect invertebrate of orders e.g. gastropoda (snails and slugs), arachnida, and myriapoda (centipedes and millipedes) are also fair game. Beetles are consumed more often because of they are more abundant and more frequently encountered. This reasoning applies to other classes of animals that are found to be more frequently consumed by the moor frog. Large moor frog do appear to have a preference for beetles because they are larger than most other insect prey. Larger moor frogs tend to consume large prey and small moor frog consume small prey. This behavior is assumed to have evolved to reduce competition between moor frogs and/or to maximize net energy gained from feeding. Larger moor frogs appear to consume fewer small insects not out of generosity towards smaller moor frogs. All large moor frogs were once small moor frogs; if large moor frogs consumed large and small prey indifferently there may not be enough small prey for smaller moor frogs harming the moor frog and its genes. Aside from size preferences, individual moor frogs do not appear to prefer more energetically favorable prey over less energetically favorable prey of equal size. Any animal that encroaches close enough that is of the appropriate size to physically swallow is fair game. Moor frogs are opportunistic predators that wait for prey to appear to then consume them; as opposed to intentional predators that actively hunt for prey. More mobile prey are more often consumed by the moor frog because of their opportunistic nature.

Plant matter and inedible objects such as pebbles are also found to be consumed by the moor frog; however, it is assumed that these objects are accidentally consumed. Plant matter is found to be consumed in greater quantities when more prey has been consumed which suggests that plant matter is consumed accidentally during the capture of prey. The moor frog’s shed skin is also consumed; however, it is unknown whether consumption of shed skin is accidental or intentional in nature.

Mating
Multimale amplexus is the predominant method of mating that the moor frog performs. This suggests that post-copulatory competition may be just as important as pre-copulatory competition. The sperm of male moor frogs will compete in the female reproductive tract.

Female frogs do not appear to prefer males of a particular size. Females did prefer to mate with males that have successfully helped produce offspring with that female in the past.

Long thumb length suggests poor sperm quality, and short thumb length suggests greater sperm quality. Males with quality sperm bred progeny with greater chances of survival. Despite this correlation, female individuals did not appear to prefer thumb length or be able to detect differences.

Blue Coloration
Male moor frogs turn a conspicuous blue during its mating season but only for a few days during peak reproductive activity, females remain brown during this time. While the blue is conspicuous to human vision, the greatest color change in male moor frogs occurs in the ultraviolet region from 350-450nm, invisible to human vision. Again, this shift in reflectance does not appear in female moor frogs.

Males who have mated appeared bluer. Males who have mated also have higher body temperatures. Males who have higher body temperatures also appeared bluer. Change in reflectance could be a method of intrasexual communication that signal an individual’s sex. Males in a multimale amplexus (multiple males mate with a single female frog) will be able to differentiate a frog’s sex if males are bright blue versus a brown female. They will know not to mount an individual if they have bright blue coloration. This is evolutionary advantageous because males that are able to differentiate coloration will be not be susceptible to wasting their sperm mistakenly mating with another male.

Blue reflectance may also be a form of intersexual communication. It is hypothesized that males with brighter blue coloration may signal greater sexual and genetic fitness ; however, studies have only revealed tadpoles fathered by bright blue individuals had greater chances of survival when pitted against large beetle larvae than when fathered by dull individuals.