Study suggests link between agricultural chemicals and frog decline
Around the world, amphibian populations are in decline, and scientists have not been able to figure out why. Now a study of leopard frogs in Pennsylvania has identified a possible culprit, and the ramifications are troubling, according to a Penn State ecologist. Research conducted primarily at Penn State's Russell E. Larson Agricultural Research Center at Rock Springs in the summer of 2007 -- described in a recently published article in the journal Nature -- suggests that chemical pollution can increase often-deadly trematode (parasitic flatworm) infections in a declining amphibian species. (more)