Dr Renee Catullo, "How many species of toadlets (Uperoleia)?" November 2021

Dr Renee Catullo is a Lecturer at University of Western Australia, with over 10 years' experience working on northern Australian frogs. She did her PhD trying to understand the systematics of Uperoleia frogs, and that still forms part of her research to this day. More recently, her work as focused more broadly on the landscape genetics of threatened vertebrate species. Renee presents:

"How many species of toadlets (Uperoleia)?"

The little brown toadlets in the genus Uperoleia have long been a conundrum. How many species are there? How do you tell them apart? Can they tell each other apart? Renee will talk about more than a decade of work on Uperoleia, which have turned out to be even more complicated (and interesting) than expected. She will also talk about some of the interesting times doing frog fieldwork in the monsoon tropics – both chasing and running from cyclones.

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Professor Michael Mahony​, "Fire, flood and pestilence, but not a plague of frogs" October 2021

Michael is an Honorary Professor in the School of Environmental and Life Sciences at the University of Newcastle. He is a conservation biologist and his working life has mostly been spent at the University, having studied frogs professionally for over 30 years. Michael spent over a decade on the technical and scientific advisory committee for the Gondwana Rainforests of Australia World Heritage Area and the rainforest fauna is one of main interests, although his first work was on desert frogs. Michael is presenting:

"Fire, flood and pestilence, but not a plague of frogs"

Understanding and mitigating the impact of intense and widespread wildfires on frogs is a challenging task. Michael will cover some of the efforts and strategies that his research group has taken since the Black Summer fires of 2019-20. He will place this work in the context of thirty years struggling to deal with an invasive pathogen and the gradual progression of climate warming and drought.

Dr Bhagya Herath, "Multidimensional complexity of communication signals of a model anuran" Sept 2021

Bhagya is a biologist and behavioural ecologist. She studied the calling behaviour and ecology of frogs in Sri Lanka and recently completed her PhD at La Trobe University where she investigated visual and acoustic communication by the Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog (Litoria fallax) which she presents in:

"Complexity of visual and vocal communication in the Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog (Litoria fallax) among genetic, ecological and social constraints"

Complex communication systems are widespread among animals. To fully understand their functional and evolutionary significance, we must examine each dimension of communication together with possible genetic, environmental and ecological constraints. With the extensive use of acoustic signals, anurans are considered excellent models for studying the evolution of such communication systems. However, there is a lack of detailed knowledge on the communication systems of most Australian anurans. The Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog, Litoria fallax, is a native Australian species with a broad distribution along the east coast, although has been introduced to Victoria. By undertaking extensive field work and playback studies, multiple levels of complexity in the species' communication behaviour (which is comprised of both acoustic and visual signals) were identified, with possible geographic variation. The talk will go further into how L. fallax can be a useful model system to disentangle the multiple factors affecting complex communication systems.