Researcher finds that wood frogs evolved rapidly in response to road salts
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Wood Frog in Kabekona Lake, Minnesota. Credit: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
When we think of evolution, we think of a process that happens over hundreds or thousands of years. In research published in Ecology and Evolution a team led by Rick Relyea, Ph.D., professor of biological sciences and David M. Darrin Senior Endowed Chair at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, found a species of frog that has evolved over the course of merely 25 years. The adaptation was spurred on by something many assume is innocuous: salt.
"We've been applying de-icing salts to reduce car accidents in snowy and icy conditions in the United States for 80 years, and we currently apply four times more road salt than we did in the 1970s," said Relyea. "However, the number of studies on its impacts to our environment are relatively few. We're beginning to learn that when salt drains into fresh water, it can kill animals, stunt the growth of fish, cause sex changes in frogs, and make animals more prone to diseases."
