|
Discovery
New Species Found in Mysteriously Diverse Jungle
Louisiana State University's Chris Austin describes his work studying the diversity of life on the island of New Guinea
March 17, 2008
Editor's note: Chris Austin's fieldwork takes him to some of the most inaccessible places on Earth in the pursuit of knowledge about the diversity of the world's amphibians and reptiles. He serves as assistant curator of herpetology at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Museum of Natural Science and assistant professor of biological science in the Department of Biological Science at LSU. This story relates some of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of fieldwork in remote New Guinea. The island of New Guinea, located just south of the equator and north of Australia, is the world's largest and tallest tropical island. New Guinea's steamy lowland jungles give way to montane moss forests, cloud forests, alpine grasslands and finally tropical glaciers that cap the mountain peaks that exceed 16,400 feet (5,000 meters). The myriad habitat zones, packed into an area one-tenth the size of the United States, harbor some of the most diverse and exquisite life on Earth: from kangaroos that live in trees to lizards with green blood. The diversity of life on the island is so varied, it has been called megadiverse, and so vast and unspoiled, it has been identified as one of the world's five "High Biodiversity Wilderness Areas." One of the mysteries about New Guinea's megadiversity is that it is thought to be relatively new. The main mountain range that provides the diversity of habitat types is only 5 million years old, a geologic and evolutionary blink of an eye. How the high levels of diversity arose in New Guinea in such a short evolutionary time-scale is what I am trying to figure out. Flying Into the Jungle In order to collect data to address this question, I led a small expedition into the pristine lowland rainforest area of the Sepik Basin in north central New Guinea. Along with me are C.J. Hayden (a Ph.D. student in my laboratory), Chris Dahl (an honors student at the University of Papua New Guinea) and Jim Anaminiato (a researcher at the Papua New Guinea National Museum). The extremely limited road system in Papua New Guinea means that we flew to our destination. I chartered a little single engine Cessna to fly us into a small grass airstrip near the Gedik River, a northern tributary of the Sepik River. The Sepik is the longest river on the island and, possibly, the largest uncontaminated drainage system in Australasia, with a catchment of approximately 30,900 square miles (80,000 square kilometers). At this location, we conducted a survey of amphibians and reptiles, identifying what species occur in this part of the island as well as trying to discover species new to science. We collected genetic material that we will use to examine fine-scale patterns to better understand the underlying processes that have been responsible for generating so much diversity in such a short biological time-scale. Working Day and Night Herpetological fieldwork is neverending. We worked in the day collecting lizards and snakes, and we worked by night collecting frogs. Frog collections and identifications add an additional level of difficulty. Many frog species are distinguished by male mating calls. Therefore, working on frogs requires extreme patience and stealth, as well as specialized recording equipment in order to collect, identify and describe frogs. With the help of Tano, the village elder, and many eager young men in the field, we conducted a survey of the primary rainforest that surrounds the village. Our expedition has been a great success. In about two weeks, we documented 79 species of snakes, lizards and frogs representing 40 genera from 11 families. This includes at least 10 species I believe are new to science. In addition to our scientific pursuits, I'm very interested in the conservation of the fauna and flora of this wonderful island. At the end of the field season, complications arose for our scheduled airplane pick up. Via a static-filled satellite phone conversation with our airbase, I learned the plane was in need of repair to its single propeller, and we could either choose to leave two days early or wait two weeks until the small Cessna would be back from repair. Through static-filled Aussie idiom, the expatriate pilot assures me that the propeller is 'quite functional'. Given that our survey work was close to complete, I decided for the group to leave two days early on the shoddy propeller. -- Chris Austin, Louisiana State University ccaustin@lsu.edu This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Investigators
Chris Austin
Related Institutions/Organizations
Louisiana State University & Agricultural and Mechanical College
Locations
Papua New Guinea
Louisiana
Related Awards
#0445213 Evolutionary Biogeography in the Lowland Reptile and Amphibian Fauna from New Guinea
Total Grants
$501,370
Related Websites
LiveScience.com: Behind the Scenes:New Species Found in Mysteriously Diverse Jungle: /news/longurl.cfm?id=73
Top 10s: Planet Earth 2007: Top 10 Science Revelations: /news/longurl.cfm?id=74
LiveScience Image Gallery: Image Gallery: Snakes, Frogs and Lizards: The Best of Your Images: /news/longurl.cfm?id=36
LiveScience Image GalleryImage Gallery: New Amphibian Tree of Life: /news/longurl.cfm?id=37
|
