This meeting and presentation took place entirely online via Zoom.
At 7:00 pm, President Debbie Mullins called the Society meeting to order.
President Mullins made the following announcements:
The Linnaean field trip schedule is on the Society’s website, with trips through August of 2025. While non-members are welcome to join the Society’s trips, registration priority is given to Linnaean members.
President Mullins encouraged non-members to join the Society.
Membership renewal dues have still not been received from quite a few members. President Mullins reminded the remaining members to submit their dues as soon as possible.
In October, the board of directors voted to eliminate the Society’s requirement for sponsorship for new members.
At the November board meeting, board members expressed approval for dropping the requirement that new members be voted in by the board and the membership. Members are encouraged to share their opinions about dropping the voting requirement by emailing President Mullins at president@linnaeannewyork.org.
The board hopes that eliminating sponsorship and voting approval of new members will send a clear signal that all who have an interest in birds and natural history are welcome to become members of the Society.
Registration for the upcoming 125th annual Christmas Bird Count for the New Jersey, Lower Hudson count circle (which includes Manhattan) is open on the NYC Bird Alliance (formerly NYC Audubon) website. The CBC date is December 15th.
Society members had been asked to vote online on two motions in advance of this meeting:
Motion 1: Request to approve the minutes of the October, 2024, regular members meeting. The minutes were approved by a vote of 103 in favor, six abstaining, and none opposed.
Motion 2: Request to approve the membership applications of sixteen new members. The new memberships were approved with 146 in favor, one abstaining, and none opposed. President Mullins warmly welcomed the following new members:
- Melissa Breyer, Active
- Cheryl Craddock, Active
- Michelle, D’Mello, Active
- Rosemary Feal, Associate
- George Gianakos, Active
- Craig Himmelwright, Associate
- Richard Lufrano, Active
- David Minoli, Active
- Sahar Sehgaal, Active
- Anna Taam, Active
- Adrianne Waite, Associate
- Julia Deng, Active
- Lisa Wolfe, Active
- Thomas Freedman, Active
- Sarah Kimball Stephenson, Active
- Erasmus van Niekerk, Associate
At 7:05 pm, President Mullins turned to the lecture program and introduced the speaker, Dr. Kelly Zamudio, professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of Texas, Austin, and an endowed fellow of the Doherty Regents Chair in Molecular Biology.
Lecture: “Diversification and Conservation of Neotropical Amphibians,” presented by Dr. Kelly Zamudio
Dr. Zamudio’s presentation covered three topics related to diversification and conservation of neotropical amphibians: 1) sexual selection and mating systems; 2) ecology and evolution of infectious diseases; and 3) rediscovery of lost frogs.
Sexual selection and mating systems
Dr. Zamudio gave a historical perspective and detailed description of the diversity of frogs’ reproductive modes, an area of study that her lab is interested in. She explained that for decades, accepted dogma was that frogs evolved from aquatic to terrestrial breeding in order to achieve higher reproduction fitness by avoiding predation, since it is safer for eggs to develop out of the water. She cited a 2013 publication that systematically reviewed frog reproductive modes, showing how they were evolving. The paper concluded that selective pressure from predation was causing reproductive phenotypes to evolve.
Dr. Zamudio and her colleagues believed that sexual selection might also play a role. They therefore conducted a study to investigate whether sexual selection might be driving the changes in reproductive modes. They concluded that sexual selection played a role, in addition to predation, and published a paper, “Polyandry, Predation, and the Evolution of Frog Reproductive Modes.”
Dr. Zamudio postulates that a lot of the diversity in frog reproductive modes is highly underestimated, and that more can be learned from individual species-specific details. She then gave examples of two recent studies: 1) “Male-male Competition and Repeated Evolution of Terrestrial Breeding in Atlantic Coastal Forest Frogs” by her graduate student, Fabio de Sa, et al., which determined the changes in the degree of dimorphism caused by several switches between stream breeding and terrestrial breeding over evolutionary time; and 2) “Show Me You Care: Female Mate Choice Based on Egg Attendance Rather than Male or Territorial Traits,” by Anyelet Valencia-Aguilar, whose work on glass frogs in the southwestern Amazon focused on parental care and reproductive success.
Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases
There is a worldwide pandemic affecting frogs from the fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). Bd has played a role in the decline of 501 species of amphibians in the past 50 years, with the extinction of 90 species, and a 90% population reduction in another 124 species. Dr. Zamudio showed charts to illustrate global locations, timeframes, extents of loss, and phylogeny, indicating that East Asia is the source for the Bd lineages. Dr. Zamudio has been doing a number of studies focusing on the genetics and genomics of the infection process. She described one study of Eastern spotted salamanders. While Bd has spread worldwide, the salamander-specific fungus Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) has not yet reached the Americas. Dr. Zamudio’s student, Ana Longo, conducted laboratory studies to investigate the consequences of co-infections of Bd and Bsal on host survival, and found the lowest survival rate when the salamanders were doubly infected by both Bd and Bsal (2019 paper: “Double-trouble: Co-infections of Chytrid Fungi Will Severely Impact Widely Distributed Newts”).
Rediscovery of Lost Frogs Using Environmental DNA
Half of the amphibian species in Brazil are distributed in the Atlantic coastal forest, an area now fragmented and around 16% of its original size. Species populations have declined, been extirpated, and become extinct. Potentially, though, some of the species that aren’t being seen might still be around. Dr. Zamudio’s group visited several locations in the Atlantic coastal forest, and used environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to look for traces of “lost” frogs. Their work with eDNA analysis identified seven frog species: four were species with declining populations, two were species that had locally disappeared but were found elsewhere, and one was a species that had been considered extinct. These findings provide another piece of data towards understanding what species are still present and deserving of further conservation action.
At 7:57 pm, Linnaean member Jim Muchmore thanked Dr. Zamudio for a fascinating lecture. He then hosted the Q&A session.
At the conclusion of the Q&A, Jim Muchmore thanked Dr. Zamudio again, and at 8:15 pm the meeting was adjourned.
A recording of this meeting in its entirety can be found on the Linnaean Society of New York website.
Respectfully submitted by Lisa Kroop, Recording Secretary