Bufo bombinus (Latreille in Sonnini de Manoncourt and Latreille, 1801)
Rana ignea (Shaw, 1802)
Bufo pluvialis (Daudin, 1802)
Rana cruenta (Pallas, 1814)
Bombinator igneus (Merrem, 1820)
Bombina ignea (Sturm, 1828)
Bufo (Bombinator) bombina (Cuvier, 1829)
Bombitator bombinus (Wagler, 1830)
Bufo cruentus (Dvigubsky, 1832)
Bufo bombinus (Schinz, 1833)
Bufo bombina (Schinz, 1837)
Bombinator igneus (Boulenger, 1882)
Bombinator bombina (Bedriaga, 1890)
Bombinator variegatus bombina (Prazák, 1898)
Bombina bombina (Stejneger, 1907)
Bombina (Bombina) bombina (Tian and Hu, 1985)
The European fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina) is a species of
fire-bellied toad native to eastern parts of mainland
Europe, where it can be found near waterbodies such as ponds and marshes.[2][3] It is known for its red colored belly used to ward off predators, an example of
aposematism, and its distinctive "whoop" call.[4][5]
Description
The European fire-bellied toad is a medium sized frog, growing up to approximately 5.6 centimetres (2+3⁄16 in).[4] The dorsal coloration can vary from gray to brown to green, while the stomach is red with thick black
mottling. The backs of these frogs are covered in warts.
When threatened by a predator, the fire-bellied toad will lift up its arms (sometimes flipping over) to expose its red coloration and show off its toxicity to the potential predator. This is known as
Unkenreflex, and is an example of
aposematism.
There is an
introduced population of European fire-bellied toads in
Lorraine,
France, over 500 kilometres (310 mi) away from their natural range in eastern
Germany.[9] This population was first discovered in 2009 in
Moselle but has since been found in several other nearby locations up to 30 kilometres (19 mi) away, which suggests they were moved by humans intentionally. They can potentially impact the local
yellow-bellied toads through hybridization.
While they are listed as "
Least Concern" by the
IUCN, this frog has been suffering some losses throughout its range. For example, 15 known breeding populations of these frogs were identified in Denmark in 1974, but by 1988 only 8 of those populations remained.[10] In the
Puszcza Romincka Landscape Park in Poland, the fire-bellied toad was described as uncommon,[11] rare in the
Coastal Landscape Park,[12] and in an amphibian survey in
Warsaw the fire-bellied toad only made up 9% of the observed species.[13] However, in some areas they are recovering through human intervention, such as in
Funen County,
Denmark, where dozens of ponds were dug for the frogs to live and breed in, increasing their population approximately five-fold in a decade.[14]
Ecology
This frog generally prefers to live in lowland areas such as
ponds and
marshes without too much woody vegetation.[11] In larger lakes these frogs will stay on the edges (50 to 70 centimetres (20 to 28 in) deep) in
reed beds and
floodplains.[9] They feed on all sorts of small
invertebrates, in particular
springtails,
beetles,
flies, and
ants.[15][16] In return, the frogs are preyed on by many other animals such as
snakes and
birds,[17] while tadpoles are eaten by
leeches and
fish.[18]
They will typically
hibernate once temperatures dip down to 4 °C (39 °F), during which they burrow into
soil or a rotting log and remain in a state of
torpor until spring.[4] Breeding commences once temperatures reach 16 °C (61 °F)[19] and is usually done at night time or early morning, where females will deposit up to 15 to 40 eggs depending on their size.[18][20]Tadpoles are born in about a week and develop for approximately a month before
metamorphosing at a size of about 3.8 centimetres (1+1⁄2 in)).[18]
Evolution
The European fire-bellied toad (B. bombina) and yellow-bellied toad (B. variegata) are the product of
clinal speciation.[21] They emerged from an ancient
divergence event, however they continue to
hybridise where they overlap geographically.[21] Yanchukov et al. 2006's survey of these species aids understanding of clinal speciation itself: Because different subpopulations carry different combinations of the
reproductive isolation mechanisms, and because they combine data from a new transect with four preceding
transects, their comparison and reanalysis of this speciation process helps to understand the contribution of
single-nucleotide polymorphisms to clinal speciation.[21] Clinal speciation is a challenging dynamic to study and so Yanchukov is one of the few to provide insight into this relationship.[21]
Their speciation occurred during the
Pleistoceneepoch.[citation needed] The ancestor to both species was confined to southern Europe during the
Last Glacial Maximum, where B. variegata evolved in the mountains in the west (
Apennine and
Balkans) and B. bombina in the lowlands to the east (the
steppes around the
Black and
Caspian Sea).[22] As the glaciers receded, both species spread out to the rest of Europe but
hybridized and
competed with each other until B. bombina occupied the lowlands and B. variegata the higher altitudes.[citation needed]
While the two frogs hybridize in narrow
hybrid zones of approximately 2 to 7 kilometres (1.2 to 4.3 mi) wide,[23] they generally avoid it by differing in their
morphology and behavior. B. bombina prefers to breed in lowland
seasonal ponds, such as
wet meadows and
floodplains, but ones that are still close to nearby permanent waterbodies. On the other hand, B. variegata prefers to breed in higher elevations in
ephermal ponds that are quick to dry up.[23]B. bombina also spends more time confined to a waterbody compared to B. variegata, which is more terrestrial and has evolved longer legs and thicker skin to aid in their frequent migrations onto dry land.[24][25][26] Additionally, B. variegata is unable to sing as loudly as B. bombina due to their lack of internal
vocal sacs, which forces them to find other breeding ponds without the other species of fire-bellied toad.[23][5]
The
prokineticin family of compounds was first discovered in this species and B. variegata.[30] These two species produce Bv8 and subsequently other prokineticins have been isolated from other species in the genus, and predicted in Rana temporaria and Pelophylax esculentus.[30][31]
^
abcdAbbott, R.; Albach, D.; Ansell, S.; Arntzen, J. W.; Baird, S. J. E.; Bierne, N.; Boughman, J.; Brelsford, A.; Buerkle, C. A.; Buggs, R.; Butlin, R. K.; Dieckmann, U.; Eroukhmanoff, F.; Grill, A.; Cahan, S. H.; Hermansen, J. S.; Hewitt, G.; Hudson, A. G.; Jiggins, C.; Jones, J.; Keller, B.; Marczewski, T.; Mallet, J.; Martinez-Rodriguez, P.; Möst, M.; Mullen, S.; Nichols, R.; Nolte, A. W.; Parisod, C.; Pfennig, K.; Rice, A. M.; Ritchie, M. G.; Seifert, B.; Smadja, C. M.; Stelkens, R.; Szymura, J. M.; Väinölä, R.; Wolf, J. B. W.; Zinner, D. (2013-01-17).
"Hybridization and speciation". Journal of Evolutionary Biology. 26 (2).
European Society for Evolutionary Biology (
Wiley): 229–246.
doi:
10.1111/j.1420-9101.2012.02599.x.
ISSN1010-061X.
PMID23323997.
S2CID830823.
^Arntzen, J. W. (December 1978). "Some Hypotheses on Postglacial Migrations of the Fire-Bellied Toad, Bombina bombina (Linnaeus) and the Yellow-Bellied Toad, Bombina variegata (Linnaeus)". Journal of Biogeography. 5 (4): 339–345.
Bibcode:
1978JBiog...5..339A.
doi:
10.2307/3038027.
JSTOR3038027.
^Negri, L.; Melchiorri, P. (2006). "Opioid peptides from frog skin and Bv8-related peptides". In Kastin, JA (ed.). Handbook of biologically active peptides (1 ed.).
Amsterdam:
Academic Press. pp. 269–75.