Believe it or not: Poisonous frog species is more easily to become extinct!

Scientists have found that amphibians that use toxins to protect themselves against predators are more easily to face extinction than those frogs who use other types of defence. The result poses a challenge to a long-held evolutionary hypothesis. Animals get different defence mechanisms in the long evolutionary history. The defence mechanisms include chemical defences, such as poisons or irritants, camouflage, warning colouration and mimicry. Scientists have studied the way mechanisms deter predators to a great degree, but they still know little about how the mechanisms impact upon larger evolutionary processes such as speciation, such as the formation and extinction of species. The team examined how rates of extinction and speciation varied across different defensive traits in amphibians in the first large-scale empirical test in animals of its kind, and found animals that use chemical defence show higher rates of speciation, but also higher rates of extinction, compared to those without, resulting in a net reduction in species diversification. On the contrary, the use of warning colouration and mimicry was associated with higher rates of speciation, but unchanged rates of extinction. "There are a number of plausible reasons why the use of chemical defence might lead to higher extinction rates. For example, it could be that there is trade off which leaves prey vulnerable to other kinds of enemies, such as infectious diseases, but we don't yet understand what drives the relationship," lead author of the study, Dr Kevin Arbuckle who is from University's Institute of Integrative Biology. The study was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences recently. The findings of this study can help to conserve the endangered species by allowing some predictability of extinction risk from knowledge of antipredator defences. Study of amphibians is a good example, Accoding to Dr Arbuckle. Read more:http://www.cusabio.com/ELISA-Kit/Rabbit-B-cell-lymphoma-extra-large-Bcl-xlELISA-kit-1035341.html