Suburban green frogs transforming into females – why this sudden change?

A new study has found that frogs living in or near suburban areas are turning into females. The study has been carried out by a team of researchers from the Yale University.

Researchers have found that both urbanization and estrogenic wastes are partially responsible reasons behind the gender alterations amongst these amphibians.

The researchers of the study have stated that higher levels of estrogen in the water can disrupt the endocrine system of the animal and once a disruption like that takes, the sexual development of the frog is affected badly.

Researchers have examined that several hundreds of these young amphibians from 21 different ponds in Connecticut and even though all these ponds have been close to one another in geographical basis, the surroundings of these frogs varied to a great extent.

It was discovered by the team that the ponds that were located closer to the suburban regions inclined to have higher numbers of female green frogs in comparison to other that had been located close to the forest areas.

From it was found from studies conducted in the past was that these gender chances can be caused by pesticides or chemicals although latest study clarified that the endocrine system of these frogs are being disrupted and the estrogenic chemicals in the suburban locales are responsible for that.

Lead author of the study Max Lambert, a doctoral student at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, said, “In suburban ponds, the proportion of females born was almost twice that of frog populations in forested ponds. The fact that we saw such clear evidence was astonishing”.

The team didn’t put any effort in locating from where the estrogen in the water derived, but according to a few studies conducted in the past, the hormone regulation of frogs have been altered due to agricultural runoff and water contamination.

The findings of the study have been published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Tasnuva Rahim

I have been writing ever since I can remember, but that is because school made me do so against my will. Today here I am, standing strong because my mentors could see my flair which had undoubtedly mirrored in my school papers and the essays that never failed to amaze them. The strength of my words, the power of my insight and creativity is something I cherish very closely and I hope that someday it will be worth more than it is now. It is their encouragement and the faith that I had in myself taken me so many places, brought in so many surprises that I am grateful for them each and every day. I have worked for Dhaka tribune, written travel blogs collected from the time when I was working for an inbound travel agency. I have covered stories on cultures and norms of our country for a local lifestyle magazine Ice Today magazine. As of now I’m working as a freelance content writer and loving every moment of it.

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