asfouts
New member
When it rains it pours study: We all know that the pacific chorus frog (hereby abbreviated to PCF) has many color morphs. Red-grey, gold-yellow, orange, green, brown, and blue. But what exactly changes the structures of their chromatophore. We know that the common morph of the frog is green, and given environmental change will turn brown.
The study I want to conduct is based on the amount of mutated specimens one can find in a season. Because it seems that when it rains it pours. From what others have told me when they see the rare blue PCF they see more than one of these blue critters. And from what I have observed in a given year gold and red frogs are more prevalent. Usually a mutation happens by chance and to only one individual of a clutch. But is it possible that environment can affect the arrangement of chromatophores in an egg clutch? Or is it perhaps one frog producing many clutches of mutated eggs. The blue coloration of the frog comes from the absence of xanthophores. And red, yellow, and orange are obtained from the absence of isidophores. We do know that chromatophores are connected to genes. But can certain light intensities mess with the structure of these chromatophores?
This experiment will take a few generations under certain intensities and right now I see way to many holes in this experiment to be able to come up with a solid conclusion . But what I was thinking is first work with a few generations of these frogs under normal sunlight, and see what I can do to breed out these morphs. Then when I breed out the morphs, separate them so that no gene crosses can affect the outcome of the experiment.
The frogs I will be using will have to be captive breed since I can only collect 4 wild specimens legally, and don’t want to jump through any hoops for the scientific experiment license (not to mention I don’t belong to any research groups).
Any questions, comments, holes, concerns you can point out would be appreciated, since I don’t want faulty data.
The study I want to conduct is based on the amount of mutated specimens one can find in a season. Because it seems that when it rains it pours. From what others have told me when they see the rare blue PCF they see more than one of these blue critters. And from what I have observed in a given year gold and red frogs are more prevalent. Usually a mutation happens by chance and to only one individual of a clutch. But is it possible that environment can affect the arrangement of chromatophores in an egg clutch? Or is it perhaps one frog producing many clutches of mutated eggs. The blue coloration of the frog comes from the absence of xanthophores. And red, yellow, and orange are obtained from the absence of isidophores. We do know that chromatophores are connected to genes. But can certain light intensities mess with the structure of these chromatophores?
This experiment will take a few generations under certain intensities and right now I see way to many holes in this experiment to be able to come up with a solid conclusion . But what I was thinking is first work with a few generations of these frogs under normal sunlight, and see what I can do to breed out these morphs. Then when I breed out the morphs, separate them so that no gene crosses can affect the outcome of the experiment.
The frogs I will be using will have to be captive breed since I can only collect 4 wild specimens legally, and don’t want to jump through any hoops for the scientific experiment license (not to mention I don’t belong to any research groups).
Any questions, comments, holes, concerns you can point out would be appreciated, since I don’t want faulty data.