40-year-old chorus frog tissues vital to Louisiana hybrid zone study
Sunday, July 17, 2016 - 16:31
in Biology & Nature
Researchers are shedding light on how often and where species hybridize through time, thanks to the rediscovery of 40-year-old tissue samples preserved at the LSU Museum of Natural Science. In a recent study, they show that two species of chorus frogs now form hybrids across a much wider area of Louisiana and Mississippi than they did just 30-40 years earlier. A widening area of hybridization has important implications for the future of these species and suggests that recent alterations to their environment have affected their fitness or dispersal ability.