New paper: ‘Genetic structure and diversity of the endangered growling grass frog in a rapidly urbanizing region’

My first PhD paper has been published in Royal Society Open Science on the conservation genetics of the Growling Grass Frog around Melbourne, Australia. Remnant populations of the species around the city of Melbourne are threatened by urban expansion and I found generally low levels of genetic diversity. However, one of the regions studied, the Cardinia Shire, did exhibit unique genetic types and relatively high diversity and should therefore be recognised as a separate Management Unit.

The paper’s publication is particularly exciting for me, as it involved countless hours standing in the middle of urban wetlands catching frogs, learning how to do genetics lab work to process hundreds of samples, and I had a baby the week it was submitted.

One of my Growling Grass Frog photos on the cover of the journal