Laura is a research fellow at the Melbourne veterinary school at the University of Melbourne. She is a conservation biologist and disease ecologist primarily focusing on how frogs are affected by chytridiomycosis. she presents:
"The Effects of Climate Change on Frog Development, Physiology and Immunity"
Amphibians are declining worldwide, and the impacts of climate change are largely unknown. For animals that require freshwater aquatic habitat, such as frogs as tadpoles, climate change and its influence on water availability poses a huge risk.
Laura will give an overview of her recent work investigating how climate change (through pond drying and larval density) impact larval development and frogs later in life. Understanding how climate change influences frog development, survival, physiology and immunity can help us predict the direct impacts of climate change on frogs.