WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.740 Welcome back to the deep dive. You know, I was 00:00:02.740 --> 00:00:04.700 looking at some old biology textbooks the other 00:00:04.700 --> 00:00:07.480 day. Oh, yeah. Stuff from the 70s mostly. And 00:00:07.480 --> 00:00:11.400 it really struck me how we tend to treat taxonomy 00:00:11.400 --> 00:00:15.519 like it's this this dusty finished architecture. 00:00:15.679 --> 00:00:17.679 Right. Like the work is already done. Exactly. 00:00:17.859 --> 00:00:20.280 We act like the tree of life is a static museum 00:00:20.280 --> 00:00:22.760 exhibit. Everything has a label, a shelf and 00:00:22.760 --> 00:00:25.339 a permanent address. Which is a very comforting 00:00:25.339 --> 00:00:28.899 fiction. but completely wrong. If you work in 00:00:28.899 --> 00:00:31.120 the field, you know taxonomy is actually more 00:00:31.120 --> 00:00:33.799 like an active construction site. There is scaffolding 00:00:33.799 --> 00:00:36.159 everywhere, walls are being knocked down. Tenants 00:00:36.159 --> 00:00:38.679 being evicted. Yeah, evicted and moved to new 00:00:38.679 --> 00:00:41.100 buildings on a weekly basis, basically. Especially 00:00:41.100 --> 00:00:43.960 in the neotropics. And today, we are going to 00:00:43.960 --> 00:00:46.939 look at one specific tenant that has been living 00:00:46.939 --> 00:00:50.119 through, honestly, a massive renovation project. 00:00:50.299 --> 00:00:53.039 A total identity crisis. A complete identity 00:00:53.039 --> 00:00:56.399 crisis. We are talking about a frog that has 00:00:56.399 --> 00:00:58.619 bounced around the scientific filing cabinet 00:00:58.619 --> 00:01:02.600 for nearly 50 years before finally, just recently, 00:01:03.039 --> 00:01:05.099 getting its own name on the door. And not just 00:01:05.099 --> 00:01:07.840 a new species name either, a whole new genus. 00:01:07.879 --> 00:01:12.150 Right. We are diving into the story of Bacchus, 00:01:12.709 --> 00:01:15.090 which, I mean, it sounds grand, doesn't it? It 00:01:15.090 --> 00:01:17.170 does. Bacchus. It sounds like a Roman emperor 00:01:17.170 --> 00:01:19.750 or something. It really does. But the irony is 00:01:19.750 --> 00:01:23.090 that this grand emperor currently has no subjects. 00:01:23.549 --> 00:01:26.069 It is what we call a monotypic genus. Meaning 00:01:26.069 --> 00:01:29.890 it's a club of one. Exactly one. There is only 00:01:29.890 --> 00:01:33.370 a single species in the entire genus, Bacchus 00:01:33.370 --> 00:01:37.040 bilineatus. Just one. And, you know, That solitude 00:01:37.040 --> 00:01:39.140 is exactly what we're going to unpack today. 00:01:39.560 --> 00:01:41.599 Because when you have a single species representing 00:01:41.599 --> 00:01:44.579 an entire evolutionary branch, the stakes for 00:01:44.579 --> 00:01:46.480 understanding it change. And for saving it too. 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:49.599 Oh, dramatically. So here's the mission for our 00:01:49.599 --> 00:01:51.939 deep dives today. We aren't just talking about 00:01:51.939 --> 00:01:53.980 a frog. We are talking about how we categorize 00:01:53.980 --> 00:01:57.019 life on Earth. We're going to explore this frog's 00:01:57.019 --> 00:01:59.560 chaotic history of names, its incredibly unique 00:01:59.560 --> 00:02:01.500 survival skills in human altered landscapes, 00:02:01.519 --> 00:02:04.340 and why this specific two -lined robber frog 00:02:04.340 --> 00:02:07.560 is the absolute sole member of its genus. It's 00:02:07.560 --> 00:02:10.219 going to be a fascinating journey. It is. And 00:02:10.219 --> 00:02:12.199 just to give you a roadmap of where we are pulling 00:02:12.199 --> 00:02:14.740 this from, we'll be drawing heavily on recent 00:02:14.740 --> 00:02:17.759 taxonomic records and studies, along with conservation 00:02:17.759 --> 00:02:21.500 data from the IUCN Red List. which paints a really 00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:23.979 interesting, slightly contradictory picture, 00:02:24.159 --> 00:02:26.000 as we'll see. Yeah, we will definitely get into 00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:27.860 that. But let's start with the creature itself. 00:02:28.439 --> 00:02:31.520 The common name is the two -lined robber frog. 00:02:31.900 --> 00:02:34.639 Right. Which I have to say is just a fantastic 00:02:34.639 --> 00:02:37.759 name. Robber frog. It sounds so intriguing. It 00:02:37.759 --> 00:02:40.300 does sound like a tiny thief. But anyone who 00:02:40.300 --> 00:02:42.919 follows herpetology knows the term robber frog 00:02:42.919 --> 00:02:45.180 is a bit of a catch -all. Right, for the family 00:02:45.180 --> 00:02:47.639 crag Astoridae and its relatives. Exactly. It's 00:02:47.639 --> 00:02:49.919 a classic misnomer. They aren't out there stealing 00:02:49.919 --> 00:02:52.219 tiny wallets from other amphibians. Though that 00:02:52.219 --> 00:02:54.180 would make for an amazing documentary. It really 00:02:54.180 --> 00:02:56.639 would. But the robber moniker historically comes 00:02:56.639 --> 00:02:59.879 from their speed. Ah, OK. Yeah, their speed and 00:02:59.879 --> 00:03:02.699 their elusiveness. Early naturalists found them 00:03:02.699 --> 00:03:05.180 incredibly frustrating to catch. The frogs would 00:03:05.180 --> 00:03:07.639 basically rob the collector of their prize by 00:03:07.639 --> 00:03:09.939 just vanishing into the leaf litter. That makes 00:03:09.939 --> 00:03:11.520 total sense. They've robbed you of the catch. 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:14.120 Exactly. And the two line part, the bilineatus, 00:03:15.000 --> 00:03:16.979 that's pretty self -explanatory, right? Yeah. 00:03:16.979 --> 00:03:18.780 You look at the dorsal side, the back of the 00:03:18.780 --> 00:03:20.879 frog, and you see the pattern. It has these two 00:03:20.879 --> 00:03:23.520 distinct lines. OK. So the common name makes 00:03:23.520 --> 00:03:26.939 sense. But the scientific name, that is where 00:03:26.939 --> 00:03:29.340 the headache really begins. A massive headache. 00:03:29.500 --> 00:03:31.039 Because if we were having this conversation, 00:03:31.039 --> 00:03:33.759 say, five years ago, we wouldn't even be saying 00:03:33.759 --> 00:03:36.280 the word bahias. No, not at all. We would be 00:03:36.280 --> 00:03:39.750 talking about Eleutherodactylus bolliniatus. 00:03:39.810 --> 00:03:43.169 Ah, the dreaded Eleutherodactylus. The ultimate 00:03:43.169 --> 00:03:45.909 wastebasket of the neotropics. It really is. 00:03:46.009 --> 00:03:47.629 I feel like every time we look at the history 00:03:47.629 --> 00:03:50.250 of a South American frog, it inevitably starts 00:03:50.250 --> 00:03:53.430 in Eleutherodactylus. It's so true. It seems 00:03:53.430 --> 00:03:55.349 like for the better part of the 20th century, 00:03:55.909 --> 00:03:58.250 if a scientist found a small frog that developed 00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:01.419 directly without a tadpole stage, and it didn't 00:04:01.419 --> 00:04:03.300 have webbed feet, they just tossed it in there. 00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:05.560 They tossed it in and called it a day. That is 00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:07.840 essentially exactly what happened. Wow. But you 00:04:07.840 --> 00:04:10.199 have to remember the historical context here. 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:12.919 When Boeckerman first described this frog back 00:04:12.919 --> 00:04:16.920 in 1975, he was working primarily with morphology. 00:04:17.240 --> 00:04:19.519 Physical characteristics. Right. Does it have 00:04:19.519 --> 00:04:23.240 toe pads? How long are the legs? What does the 00:04:23.240 --> 00:04:25.800 tympanum, the eardrum, look like? And relying 00:04:25.800 --> 00:04:29.360 just on that is tricky. It is, because with frogs... 00:04:29.439 --> 00:04:32.800 Convergent evolution is rampant. Meaning different 00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:35.100 lineages evolved to look exactly the same because 00:04:35.100 --> 00:04:36.839 they are solving the same environmental problems. 00:04:37.220 --> 00:04:39.000 Precisely. If you live in leaf litter and you 00:04:39.000 --> 00:04:41.500 hop around the forest floor, you tend to evolve 00:04:41.500 --> 00:04:44.040 a certain body shape. So you had hundreds of 00:04:44.040 --> 00:04:46.240 species lumped into a Luthered atlas just because 00:04:46.240 --> 00:04:48.600 they looked roughly similar. Yeah, it became 00:04:48.600 --> 00:04:51.779 this massive unmanageable genus containing hundreds 00:04:51.779 --> 00:04:54.279 of species that weren't necessarily closely related 00:04:54.279 --> 00:04:56.540 at all. It was a taxonomic nightmare. So our 00:04:56.540 --> 00:04:59.470 frog. Baleniatis sat in that junk drawer for 00:04:59.470 --> 00:05:02.750 decades. Yep. But looking at the records, it 00:05:02.750 --> 00:05:05.569 didn't just stay quietly in that drawer. It got 00:05:05.569 --> 00:05:07.769 moved around. It was shuffled a lot. Yeah. So 00:05:07.769 --> 00:05:10.670 it was moved to Ishnoknema. And then some papers 00:05:10.670 --> 00:05:13.310 suggested it actually belonged in Hyrus. Yeah. 00:05:13.670 --> 00:05:15.509 Feels like scientists were just blindly shuffling 00:05:15.509 --> 00:05:17.889 cards. Well, they were trying to find the signal 00:05:17.889 --> 00:05:21.009 in the noise. The move to Ishnoknema, for instance, 00:05:21.149 --> 00:05:23.629 was a genuine attempt to break up that giant 00:05:23.629 --> 00:05:26.620 wastebasket genus. but it didn't quite work for 00:05:26.620 --> 00:05:30.120 this frog. No. Even in Ishnoknema, Bileniatis 00:05:30.120 --> 00:05:32.420 was the odd one out. It didn't quite fit the 00:05:32.420 --> 00:05:34.939 diagnosis. It was like trying to force a puzzle 00:05:34.939 --> 00:05:37.339 piece into a spot that was slightly the wrong 00:05:37.339 --> 00:05:39.540 shape. You can make it fit if you push really 00:05:39.540 --> 00:05:42.040 hard, but it's clearly not right. And the right 00:05:42.040 --> 00:05:44.540 fit only came when we stopped looking at the 00:05:44.540 --> 00:05:46.300 shape of the puzzle piece and started looking 00:05:46.300 --> 00:05:49.480 at the picture printed on it. The DNA. Exactly. 00:05:49.740 --> 00:05:52.639 The DNA. That's the absolute game changer. Molecular 00:05:52.639 --> 00:05:55.860 phylogenetics. Which brings us to the major turning 00:05:55.860 --> 00:05:59.720 point in 2021. The study by Dubois, Oehler, and 00:05:59.720 --> 00:06:02.779 Pirin. Yes. They didn't just look at the frog's 00:06:02.779 --> 00:06:05.420 physical shape. They sequenced the genes. And 00:06:05.420 --> 00:06:07.379 when you look at the molecular data, the picture 00:06:07.379 --> 00:06:10.259 clears up instantly. And that data showed that 00:06:10.259 --> 00:06:13.079 bilineatus wasn't in Ishnognoma at all. Not even 00:06:13.079 --> 00:06:16.000 close. It wasn't in the Lutherodactylus. It was 00:06:16.000 --> 00:06:19.319 something else entirely. Right. The genetic analysis 00:06:19.319 --> 00:06:22.579 revealed that bilineatus actually forms a distinct 00:06:22.579 --> 00:06:26.060 clade within the subfamily holodenone. Holodenone. 00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:28.180 Yeah, which is a really interesting group of 00:06:28.180 --> 00:06:31.160 frogs. And the genetics specifically showed that 00:06:31.160 --> 00:06:34.560 bilineatus is a sister group to two other genera. 00:06:34.779 --> 00:06:37.259 Nobella and buracolus. Exactly. It's related 00:06:37.259 --> 00:06:39.600 to them, but it's distinct from them. So it's 00:06:39.600 --> 00:06:42.500 not just a weird nobella. Correct. The genetic 00:06:42.500 --> 00:06:44.800 distance, what we call the branch length on the 00:06:44.800 --> 00:06:48.329 evolutionary tree, was significant. from those 00:06:48.329 --> 00:06:50.870 other lineages a really long time ago. So keeping 00:06:50.870 --> 00:06:54.250 its old name was basically bad science. It's 00:06:54.250 --> 00:06:56.670 distinct enough that if you keep calling it Ishnoknema 00:06:56.670 --> 00:06:59.670 or Nobella, you are actually lying about its 00:06:59.670 --> 00:07:01.990 evolutionary history. You are obscuring millions 00:07:01.990 --> 00:07:05.069 of years of independent evolution. So to accurately 00:07:05.069 --> 00:07:07.490 reflect biological reality, they had to build 00:07:07.490 --> 00:07:09.310 a brand new house for it. They had no choice. 00:07:09.529 --> 00:07:12.629 And thus, they created the genus Bihees. And 00:07:12.629 --> 00:07:15.480 suddenly... The two -lined robber frog isn't 00:07:15.480 --> 00:07:18.000 just one of hundreds of lookalikes anymore, it 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:20.959 is the sole representative of the entire bias 00:07:20.959 --> 00:07:23.399 lineage. Which brings us back to that concept 00:07:23.399 --> 00:07:26.240 we touched on earlier, the monotypic genus. Right. 00:07:26.660 --> 00:07:29.120 I feel like this is a concept that is often overlooked 00:07:29.120 --> 00:07:32.959 by people outside the field of biology. We tend 00:07:32.959 --> 00:07:35.439 to just count species. We do. Like you might 00:07:35.439 --> 00:07:37.420 say, oh this forest has a hundred species and 00:07:37.420 --> 00:07:39.199 that forest over there is a hundred species so 00:07:39.199 --> 00:07:42.610 they're perfectly equal in value. But they absolutely 00:07:42.610 --> 00:07:45.790 aren't. Why is that? This comes down to the concept 00:07:45.790 --> 00:07:49.670 of phylogenetic diversity, or PD. Think of it 00:07:49.670 --> 00:07:53.269 this way. If you have a genus with 50 species, 00:07:53.370 --> 00:07:55.709 let's say, a group of tree frogs that radiated 00:07:55.709 --> 00:07:57.670 recently, and you lose one of those species, 00:07:58.290 --> 00:08:00.589 you have lost a variation on a theme. Right. 00:08:00.610 --> 00:08:02.769 You lost a color pattern or a specific call. 00:08:03.029 --> 00:08:06.839 Yes. But the core theme survives. The genetic 00:08:06.839 --> 00:08:09.139 architecture, the evolutionary history, is still 00:08:09.139 --> 00:08:11.920 mostly there in the other 49 species. But if 00:08:11.920 --> 00:08:14.180 you lose Bajias? If you lose Bajias, you lose 00:08:14.180 --> 00:08:17.019 the entire theme. You are pruning a whole deep 00:08:17.019 --> 00:08:19.040 branch off the tree of life. Because there is 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:22.540 no backup. None. There is no sister species sitting 00:08:22.540 --> 00:08:26.850 around that shares 99 % of its genome. Once Bajius 00:08:26.850 --> 00:08:29.629 bilineatus is gone, that entire evolutionary 00:08:29.629 --> 00:08:32.590 strategy, that unique genetic distinctiveness, 00:08:33.110 --> 00:08:35.409 just vanishes forever. So it effectively carries 00:08:35.409 --> 00:08:37.570 more evolutionary weight than a single species 00:08:37.570 --> 00:08:41.009 in a highly crowded genus. Exactly. And conservationists 00:08:41.009 --> 00:08:43.309 are really starting to prioritize this metric. 00:08:43.450 --> 00:08:46.730 We call it evolutionary distinctiveness. And 00:08:46.730 --> 00:08:49.789 Bajius, being a monotypic genus, scores very 00:08:49.789 --> 00:08:52.070 high on that scale. Before we move on from its 00:08:52.070 --> 00:08:54.519 physical traits, though, The sources do mention 00:08:54.519 --> 00:08:56.360 something interesting about its appearance. Oh 00:08:56.360 --> 00:08:59.299 the variation Yeah, despite being the only species 00:08:59.299 --> 00:09:02.620 in its genus. It's not just a carbon copy every 00:09:02.620 --> 00:09:05.860 time The visual notes in the records show there 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:08.220 is quite a bit of pattern and color variation 00:09:08.220 --> 00:09:11.220 within the species itself. Yes, which is fascinating. 00:09:11.720 --> 00:09:14.279 Even though it's genetically isolated as a lineage, 00:09:14.559 --> 00:09:16.860 it still maintains morphological diversity within 00:09:16.860 --> 00:09:19.179 its own population. Which makes protecting its 00:09:19.179 --> 00:09:21.259 geography even more critical to preserve all 00:09:21.259 --> 00:09:23.440 that variation. Absolutely. And the name Bahias 00:09:23.440 --> 00:09:26.000 gives us a huge hint about that geography. It 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:29.139 isn't subtle. It's named directly after the state 00:09:29.139 --> 00:09:31.909 of Bahia in eastern Brazil. Right. This is an 00:09:31.909 --> 00:09:34.970 animal of the Atlantic forest. The Mata Atlantica. 00:09:35.269 --> 00:09:38.090 Yes. One of the most biodiverse and yet tragically 00:09:38.090 --> 00:09:40.309 most threatened biomes on the entire planet. 00:09:40.570 --> 00:09:43.909 And the taxonomic records clearly state it is 00:09:43.909 --> 00:09:47.169 endemic to Bahia. Meaning it is found nowhere 00:09:47.169 --> 00:09:49.129 else. Right. It's not found over in the Amazon. 00:09:49.269 --> 00:09:51.830 It's not down in the Cerrado. It is totally locked 00:09:51.830 --> 00:09:54.269 into this specific region of eastern Brazil. 00:09:54.429 --> 00:09:56.870 And not just anywhere in Bahia either. The source 00:09:56.870 --> 00:09:59.850 material specifies its natural environment is 00:09:59.850 --> 00:10:02.710 low -land moist forest. So it needs a specific 00:10:02.710 --> 00:10:05.190 climate. Very specific. It needs that constant 00:10:05.190 --> 00:10:07.830 humidity. It needs that specific thermal envelope 00:10:07.830 --> 00:10:10.450 to survive. But here is where the story takes 00:10:10.450 --> 00:10:12.529 a turn that I found really, really compelling. 00:10:12.789 --> 00:10:16.570 The cocoa. Yes. Usually when we talk about endemic 00:10:16.570 --> 00:10:18.909 species in the Atlantic forest, it's a tragedy. 00:10:19.129 --> 00:10:21.809 We talk about how they are clinging to the last 00:10:21.809 --> 00:10:24.730 2 % of untouched primary forest. Right, the classic 00:10:24.730 --> 00:10:27.909 fragmentation story. But Bahia is doing something 00:10:27.909 --> 00:10:31.330 completely different. The records explicitly 00:10:31.330 --> 00:10:35.190 say it occurs in cocoa plantations. This is such 00:10:35.190 --> 00:10:37.549 a fascinating twist, and it really speaks to 00:10:37.549 --> 00:10:39.470 the specific type of agriculture historically 00:10:39.470 --> 00:10:41.490 practiced in Bahia. Because we aren't talking 00:10:41.490 --> 00:10:44.940 about clear -cutting the forest to plant rows 00:10:44.940 --> 00:10:47.679 of corn or soy. No, not at all. We are talking 00:10:47.679 --> 00:10:50.500 about the cabruca system. Cabruca. Right. It's 00:10:50.500 --> 00:10:52.779 a traditional agroforestry method that dates 00:10:52.779 --> 00:10:55.379 back over a century in that region. You see, 00:10:55.559 --> 00:10:58.679 coco trees, theobroma cacao, are naturally understory 00:10:58.679 --> 00:11:01.419 plants. They don't like blazing direct sun. Exactly. 00:11:01.629 --> 00:11:04.769 They evolved in the shade of the Amazon basin. 00:11:05.269 --> 00:11:07.529 So when farmers started planting cocoa in the 00:11:07.529 --> 00:11:10.070 Atlantic forest, they didn't cut down all the 00:11:10.070 --> 00:11:12.250 big native canopy trees. They left the roof on 00:11:12.250 --> 00:11:14.610 the forest, basically. They did. They just thinned 00:11:14.610 --> 00:11:16.970 out the lower understory and planted the copa 00:11:16.970 --> 00:11:19.309 trees underneath that existing native canopy. 00:11:19.549 --> 00:11:22.830 So from the air, a cabruca farm looks surprisingly 00:11:22.830 --> 00:11:25.129 like a normal forest. It has a high canopy. It 00:11:25.129 --> 00:11:27.649 has vertical structure. And crucially for our 00:11:27.649 --> 00:11:30.590 little frog, it has leaf litter. The microhabitat. 00:11:30.700 --> 00:11:33.340 Exactly, because Bajis bolliniatus is a ground 00:11:33.340 --> 00:11:35.460 -dweller. If you zoom in on where you actually 00:11:35.460 --> 00:11:37.980 find them, they live right in the leaf litter. 00:11:38.299 --> 00:11:41.059 And in bromeliads, right? The notes mention bromeliads. 00:11:41.120 --> 00:11:43.220 Yes, those epiphytic plants that grow on the 00:11:43.220 --> 00:11:46.159 tree trunks. In a cabruca system, the farmers 00:11:46.159 --> 00:11:48.700 allow the leaves from the big canopy trees and 00:11:48.700 --> 00:11:51.519 the coco trees to just fall and decompose naturally. 00:11:51.659 --> 00:11:54.460 Which creates this deep, humid layer of organic 00:11:54.460 --> 00:11:57.639 matter on the ground. Which is basically a buffet 00:11:57.639 --> 00:12:00.769 and a protective bunker for a small frog. It 00:12:00.769 --> 00:12:03.509 creates a microclimate that beautifully mimics 00:12:03.509 --> 00:12:06.669 the original undisturbed forest floor. Because 00:12:06.669 --> 00:12:08.590 the humidity stays high from the canopy shade. 00:12:08.870 --> 00:12:11.549 Right. The temperature stays stable and the farmers 00:12:11.549 --> 00:12:14.269 generally leave those bromeliads alone. So Baez 00:12:14.269 --> 00:12:16.909 is essentially an accidental beneficiary of a 00:12:16.909 --> 00:12:19.990 specific economic model. Very much so. It's not 00:12:19.990 --> 00:12:22.549 that the frog, you know, adapted to farming in 00:12:22.549 --> 00:12:25.169 an evolutionary sense. It's that this specific 00:12:25.169 --> 00:12:27.429 farming method didn't destroy the key things 00:12:27.429 --> 00:12:29.919 the frog needs to survive. Exactly. It's what 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:33.120 we call an anthropogenic refuge. The frog accepts 00:12:33.120 --> 00:12:35.580 this habitat alteration because the variables 00:12:35.580 --> 00:12:39.320 it cares about, shade, humidity, and leaf litter, 00:12:39.779 --> 00:12:42.019 are still totally within its tolerance range. 00:12:42.139 --> 00:12:45.000 If this were a sugar cane plantation. Gone. Cattle 00:12:45.000 --> 00:12:47.759 pasture. Completely gone. But the cabrooka system 00:12:47.759 --> 00:12:50.639 hits that perfect sweet spot. And this brings 00:12:50.639 --> 00:12:56.139 us to the so what of the deep dive. The conservation 00:12:56.139 --> 00:12:59.750 status. The tricky part. Yeah. The IUCN Red List 00:12:59.750 --> 00:13:03.429 categorizes Bihis bilineatus as least concern. 00:13:03.610 --> 00:13:06.049 Least concern, which sounds like a totally clean 00:13:06.049 --> 00:13:08.289 bill of health. But when you actually read the 00:13:08.289 --> 00:13:10.710 fine print in the assessment, the data feels 00:13:10.710 --> 00:13:13.970 really tense, contradictory almost. How so? It 00:13:13.970 --> 00:13:16.110 says least concern, but then immediately notes 00:13:16.110 --> 00:13:18.169 in the records that it can be threatened by habitat 00:13:18.169 --> 00:13:21.049 loss. Ah, yes. This is the classic tension in 00:13:21.049 --> 00:13:22.929 conservation assessments. Explain that for us. 00:13:23.350 --> 00:13:26.159 Well. Least concern is often a statement about 00:13:26.159 --> 00:13:28.360 current abundance and current distribution. It 00:13:28.360 --> 00:13:30.899 is not necessarily a guarantee of long term security. 00:13:31.259 --> 00:13:34.440 Right now, there are a lot of bahis frogs hopping 00:13:34.440 --> 00:13:37.519 around those cocoa farms. The population isn't 00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:41.460 crashing today. Therefore, by the strict quantitative 00:13:41.460 --> 00:13:44.179 criteria, they get slapped with least concern. 00:13:44.659 --> 00:13:47.379 But that stability is entirely dependent on human 00:13:47.379 --> 00:13:50.379 economics. Yeah. Specifically, the price of cocoa. 00:13:50.700 --> 00:13:53.860 That is the hidden variable. The frog's survival 00:13:53.860 --> 00:13:57.559 is deeply tied to global commodity markets. If 00:13:57.559 --> 00:14:00.639 the price of cocoa collapses globally, or if 00:14:00.639 --> 00:14:03.259 a fungal disease wipes out the cocoa trees. Which 00:14:03.259 --> 00:14:05.259 has happened before, right? Like with witch's 00:14:05.259 --> 00:14:08.500 broom disease. Exactly. If that happens, farmers 00:14:08.500 --> 00:14:11.000 might be forced to switch crops to survive. They 00:14:11.000 --> 00:14:12.919 might decide to finally clear that canopy and 00:14:12.919 --> 00:14:15.240 run cattle instead. Or just sell the land for 00:14:15.240 --> 00:14:18.360 urban development. Exactly. And the moment that 00:14:18.360 --> 00:14:21.259 land use changes, that least concerned status 00:14:21.259 --> 00:14:24.779 evaporates overnight. Wow. This is why some conservationists 00:14:24.779 --> 00:14:27.080 argue that species dependent on a single type 00:14:27.080 --> 00:14:29.379 of human land use are inherently vulnerable. 00:14:29.419 --> 00:14:31.720 regardless of how many individuals there happen 00:14:31.720 --> 00:14:33.440 to be right now. It's a very fragile stability. 00:14:33.600 --> 00:14:35.559 It's basically a house of cards built on chocolate. 00:14:35.860 --> 00:14:38.679 It really is. And remember, because it's a monotypic 00:14:38.679 --> 00:14:41.519 genus, if that house of cards falls, we lose 00:14:41.519 --> 00:14:43.559 the whole lineage. Right. There is no reservoir 00:14:43.559 --> 00:14:45.720 population in a pristine national park somewhere. 00:14:45.980 --> 00:14:49.159 For a huge chunk of this population, the habitat 00:14:49.159 --> 00:14:52.240 is the plantation. It really challenges the way 00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:55.019 we interpret those red list categories. We see 00:14:55.019 --> 00:14:57.879 least concern, and we mentally check out. We 00:14:57.879 --> 00:15:01.720 do. You think, OK. Saved, done, let's worry about 00:15:01.720 --> 00:15:04.419 the next species. But for a creature like Bahia, 00:15:04.539 --> 00:15:07.899 Lee's concern is really more like safe for now. 00:15:08.139 --> 00:15:10.379 Safe as long as we keep buying chocolate. It 00:15:10.379 --> 00:15:12.679 highlights the desperate need for what we call 00:15:12.679 --> 00:15:15.100 reconciling production and conservation. Meaning 00:15:15.100 --> 00:15:17.460 we can't just rely on fenced off national parks. 00:15:17.679 --> 00:15:20.960 Exactly. We have to acknowledge that these agroforestry 00:15:20.960 --> 00:15:23.299 systems are currently serving as lifeboats for 00:15:23.299 --> 00:15:26.460 millions of years of evolutionary history. Conserving 00:15:26.460 --> 00:15:29.379 Bajas might look less like buying up raw land 00:15:29.379 --> 00:15:32.659 and more like actively supporting sustainable 00:15:32.659 --> 00:15:35.799 shade -grown cocoa certification. That's a really 00:15:35.799 --> 00:15:37.879 powerful reframing. You buy the right chocolate, 00:15:38.039 --> 00:15:41.019 you keep the canopy intact, the frog. In theory, 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:44.460 yes. It connects you, the consumer, directly 00:15:44.460 --> 00:15:47.159 to the leaf litter in Bahia. I want to circle 00:15:47.159 --> 00:15:49.360 back to the taxonomy for a moment because there's 00:15:49.360 --> 00:15:51.100 another layer here I don't want to miss. Sure. 00:15:51.580 --> 00:15:55.480 We talk about how this frog was basically hidden 00:15:55.480 --> 00:15:58.840 in a Luthered dactylous for decades. Do you think 00:15:58.840 --> 00:16:01.720 Bahia is an outlier or is this happening all 00:16:01.720 --> 00:16:04.360 over the neotropics right now? Oh, it is absolutely 00:16:04.360 --> 00:16:07.759 the norm. It is not an exception at all. We are 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:10.519 currently in a golden age of biological discovery, 00:16:10.620 --> 00:16:12.580 but it's not happening the way people think. 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:15.519 It's not happening with pith helmets and machetes 00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:17.919 out in the jungle. It's happening in a lab. Exactly. 00:16:18.259 --> 00:16:21.000 We are sequencing these supposedly common species 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:23.500 and realizing they're actually complexes of three, 00:16:23.500 --> 00:16:25.700 four, or even ten completely different species. 00:16:25.960 --> 00:16:28.200 Cryptic diversity. Cryptic diversity is massive. 00:16:28.440 --> 00:16:30.759 I would bet serious money that within the collections 00:16:30.759 --> 00:16:32.840 of natural history museums right now, sitting 00:16:32.840 --> 00:16:35.460 in jars of alcohol labeled Eluthorodactylus or 00:16:35.460 --> 00:16:38.759 Prismantis, there are dozens of entirely unnamed 00:16:38.759 --> 00:16:41.320 genera just waiting for someone to finally run 00:16:41.320 --> 00:16:44.429 the DNA. Which means our current estimates of 00:16:44.429 --> 00:16:47.429 global biodiversity are likely significant undercounts. 00:16:47.769 --> 00:16:50.110 Drastic undercounts. And the scary part is we 00:16:50.110 --> 00:16:52.070 might actually be losing these hidden species 00:16:52.070 --> 00:16:54.049 before we ever even name them. Because we don't 00:16:54.049 --> 00:16:56.250 know what we have. Think about it. If Bajis had 00:16:56.250 --> 00:16:59.830 gone extinct in, say, 1990 due to land clearing, 00:17:00.250 --> 00:17:02.289 we would have just thought we lost a local population 00:17:02.289 --> 00:17:05.049 of a very common frog. We wouldn't have ever 00:17:05.049 --> 00:17:07.349 known we lost a completely unique genus. That's 00:17:07.349 --> 00:17:09.509 the haunting part of all this. You really can't 00:17:09.509 --> 00:17:12.180 mourn what you don't know you have. And why this 00:17:12.180 --> 00:17:14.599 taxonomic work, which I know can seem so dry 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:18.079 and academic to people, is actually vital frontline 00:17:18.079 --> 00:17:20.539 conservation work. You have to define the units 00:17:20.539 --> 00:17:22.740 of life before you can even attempt to save them. 00:17:22.960 --> 00:17:25.880 You need the map. Right. The work Dubois, Oehler, 00:17:26.000 --> 00:17:29.799 and Piran did in 2021 gave us that map. Now we 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:32.400 know Bajias is a treasure. Before that, it was 00:17:32.400 --> 00:17:35.140 just misfiled data. So let's bring this all together 00:17:35.140 --> 00:17:37.559 for everyone. We have a small frog endemic to 00:17:37.559 --> 00:17:40.519 the Atlantic forest of Bahia, Brazil. It spent 00:17:40.519 --> 00:17:43.140 roughly 40 years in the witness protection program 00:17:43.140 --> 00:17:45.839 of scientific naming, disguised as just another 00:17:45.839 --> 00:17:48.779 generic robber frog. It survived the massive 00:17:48.779 --> 00:17:51.779 deforestation of its home by quietly moving into 00:17:51.779 --> 00:17:54.039 the downstairs apartment of the cocoa industry. 00:17:54.420 --> 00:17:57.519 And finally, in 2021, thanks to genetic testing, 00:17:58.140 --> 00:18:01.059 we realized it wasn't just another frog. It was 00:18:01.059 --> 00:18:04.119 the sole survivor of a unique evolutionary branch, 00:18:04.579 --> 00:18:07.859 the first and currently only member of the genus 00:18:07.859 --> 00:18:11.759 Bahias. A lineage that hangs by a thread, or 00:18:11.759 --> 00:18:13.980 rather, hangs by a cocoa pod. It really makes 00:18:13.980 --> 00:18:16.460 you look at a map of Brazil differently. It's 00:18:16.460 --> 00:18:18.720 not just green blobs of forest and gray cities. 00:18:19.240 --> 00:18:22.660 It's a patchwork of these deep, ancient lineages 00:18:22.660 --> 00:18:25.440 trying to navigate the modern, human -altered 00:18:25.440 --> 00:18:27.799 world. And it reminds us that the word common 00:18:27.799 --> 00:18:30.099 is actually a very dangerous word in biology. 00:18:30.619 --> 00:18:32.240 Just because you see a lot of something doesn't 00:18:32.240 --> 00:18:34.410 mean you truly understand what it is. So for 00:18:34.410 --> 00:18:35.769 everyone listening, I want to leave you with 00:18:35.769 --> 00:18:37.970 this thought. The next time you hear about a 00:18:37.970 --> 00:18:40.549 new species discovery, don't just picture a scientist 00:18:40.549 --> 00:18:42.750 stumbling through an uncharted jungle. Picture 00:18:42.750 --> 00:18:46.130 a geneticist staring at a computer screen, realizing 00:18:46.130 --> 00:18:48.509 that the common frog in the jar is actually a 00:18:48.509 --> 00:18:51.450 king without a kingdom, or an emperor without 00:18:51.450 --> 00:18:54.549 subjects. If we look closely at a simple cocoa 00:18:54.549 --> 00:18:58.109 farm, we might see just agriculture, but biology 00:18:58.109 --> 00:19:01.230 sees the sole survivor of a unique evolutionary 00:19:01.230 --> 00:19:04.099 branch. What other monotypic wonders are out 00:19:04.099 --> 00:19:06.359 there? Hiding in plain sight in our farms and 00:19:06.359 --> 00:19:08.859 backyards, just waiting for a name change. Long 00:19:08.859 --> 00:19:11.319 live bias. Long live bias. Thanks for diving 00:19:11.319 --> 00:19:13.319 deep with us today. Always a pleasure to be here. 00:19:13.440 --> 00:19:14.220 We'll see you on the next one.