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Coming Up...

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Recent studies on frog ecology and conservation in Victoria, with a focus on impacts from disease and agriculture

Presenter: Professor Don Driscoll

Wednesday 7th of October - 7:30 start

Elgin Hotel - 75 Burwood Rd, Hawthorn

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Don will be telling us about recent projects examining frog ecology and chytrid infection risk. He will discuss key threats to Brown Toadlet (Pseudophryne bibroni) in Victoria, including insights into the risks posed by dry conditions, wet conditions, as well as whether artificial watering systems might have a role in the species' conservation. He will also report on widespread surveys of frog communities on the basalt plains of western Victoria that have aimed to better define the effects of agricultural intensification on them. If time permits, he may also cover chytrid risks faced by the critically endangered Baw Baw Frog.

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Don is a Professor Of Terrestrial Ecology in the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at Deakin University. He cemented his froggy trajectory doing his PhD at the University of Western Australia on the metapopulation ecology of threatened froglets in the genus Geocrinia, before doing postdoctoral studies with CSIRO in Canberra and the University of Tasmania on the impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation on terrestrial fauna. He then lectured in ecology at Flinders University before becoming Associate Professor in the Fenner School of Environment and Society at Australian National University, focussing on dispersal, fragmentation and fire ecology. We welcomed him to Victoria in 2015, having since supervised numerous honours and postgraduate students doing frog-related conservation studies.

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This seminar will introduce the new Frogs of Victoria book, look at the ‘golden era’ of research on Vic frogs, delve into the features of the book, and examine the reasons that half of the State’s frog fauna is listed as threatened, and what must be done to arrest declines.


Nick Clemann began working at the Victorian government’s Arthur Rylah Institute (ARI) late last century; over 25 years at the ARI Nick led programs on threatened species across SE Australia. He worked on international scientific expeditions in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Argentina. Nick’s extensive publication record includes papers from these expeditions, as well as conservation of lizards, snakes and – of course – frogs. Nick reviews reptile and frog submissions for the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas, and serves on the Threatened Fauna Translocation Evaluation Panel. He has chaired several National Recovery Teams for threatened frogs, and holds an honorary position with Museums Victoria. Nick currently works for Zoos Victoria where he leads the Fighting Extinction programs on a snake, several lizards, and the Southern Giant Burrowing Frog.


Jeff Hughes is a Senior Lecturer in Chemistry and Environmental Science within the School of Sciences at RMIT University. In recent years he has coupled his expertise in the physical sciences with a passion for frogs, recently having supervised PhD graduate Brendan Casey who undertook much of the work being presented.


The Giant Burrowing Frog (Heleioporus australiacus) is one of Victoria’s largest frogs but also one of the rarest. There have been only sporadic reports of the GBF in recent years. Records of this species in Victoria are confined to Gippsland east of Walhalla.


The scarcity of reports and cryptic habits of this species made it a good candidate to use bioacoustic monitoring to search for. In this presentation we will look at what is known about the GBF and the methods we used. The GBF, and also the Southern Toadlet, have played recent roles in influencing plans for new mining operations in Gippsland.


Listen to the Giant Burrowing Frog here: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/...

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Frogs Vic is currently seeking technological support - to assist with sound and video at events. Please e-mail info@frogsvic.org if you might be interested in helping.

Dr Tiffany Kosch is a research fellow in One Health Research Group

at the University of Melbourne, where she studies genetic intervention approaches

for increasing chytridiomycosis resistance in frogs.

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Tiffany will talk about her research to understand the genetic basis of

immunity to chytridiomycosis in Australian frogs and how this information

can be used to restore threatened species to the wild.


​Frogs Vic is currently seeking technological support - to assist with sound and video at events. Please e-mail info@frogsvic.org if you might be interested in helping.

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