Incredible shrinking frogs: The price of deforestation? – in Puerto Rico From: environment.newscientist.com

Johanna Delgado-Acevedo and Carla Restrepo at the University of Puerto Rico collected specimens of two common species of Puerto Rican frogs from nine sites in the northern regions of the island.

The sites were all subtropical, moist environments, but differed dramatically from one another in the amount of foliage present. Some were heavily forested, while others had barely any forest left at all. Collected frogs were X-rayed and had their bones measured.

Remarkably, the team found that frogs collected in habitats with foliage coverage of 20% or less were physically 5 to 10% smaller than those collected in habitats with 70% or more foliage cover. They also found that the frogs collected in more disturbed habitats had bodies that were less symmetrical than those in pristine areas.”*

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