It's not a pretty sight, but it's a reality in many wetlands across the United States these days.  Deformed frogs, struggling to survive and scientists struggling to find out why.

Today though, scientists from the University of Colorado-Boulder announced they've found the culprit--runoff from farms and ranches.  According to the latest research, which was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, nitrogen and phosphates create a parasitic infection cycle that leaves northern leopard frogs deformed in unimaginable ways.

It's not easy being green, but imagine how difficult it is being green and deformed.  Not surprisingly, deformed populations of northern leopard frogs are in decline.  While deformed frogs have been reported in many parts of the United States, the heart of the phenomenon is in the upper Midwest of Minnesota and Wisconsin.

As alarming as these deformations area, even more alarming is the link to our own health.  According to an article in the Rocky Mountain News, runoff from farms and ranches can increase the risk of malaria and West Nile virus.  The northern leopard frog is considered an indicator of clean water throughout its range, so deformations are a disturbing sign of declining water quality.

The good news is that Center for Native Ecosystems is working to save the northern leopard frog, especially in the western United States, from continued declines.  Last year, Center for Native Ecosystems spearheaded an effort to protect the northern leopard frog in the western United States under the Endangered Species Act.  Here in the west, the frog faces an onslaught of threats, including habitat loss, overgrazing, oil and gas drilling, pesticide use, climate change, and yes, even deformations.

How bad are things for the northern leopard frog in the western United States?  Well, throughout its 18 state range, it's declined on average by more than 65%.  The frog has disappeared entirely from three states, including California, Oregon, and Texas.  Even here in Colorado, the frog has declined by as much as 85%.  Although considered "widespread," the northern leopard frog is becoming scarce throughout its entire western range.

Our future doesn't just need healthy northern leopard frogs, it needs clean water, too.  With the science continuing to mount in support of protecting the northern leopard frog under the Endangered Species Act, hopefully it won't be too late for our future.

The day was crisp, the sky was clear, and the mushrooms were plentiful.  Lead by Vera Evenson, curator of the Herbarium of Fungi at the Denver Botanic Gardens, our most recent field trip focused on the wild fungi of the Front Range.  I had seen mushrooms before, of course, in my salad, on my front lawn, in the park, but they still seemed to me to be an alien life form, complex and strange.  Vera, author of Mushrooms of Colorado and the Southern Rocky Mountains, gave me a new appreciation for these evolutionary marvels.  While I still consider them to be mysterious, I can now see them for the important role they play in our local ecosystems. Here are some of the most interesting facts I learned about fungi on this trip:

• A single fungus can be among the largest living organisms in the world.
• Fungi are more closely related to animals than they are to plants; they exhale carbon dioxide and inhale oxygen, just like an animal.
• The mushrooms that we see above ground are just one small part of the larger fungus growing underground (think of an apple and an apple tree).
• There are 30,000 mushroom species in North America, many of which have never been seen by human eyes.
• There is no easy way for a novice to tell if a mushroom is toxic (Vera told me to think of how we distinguish whether a human being is dangerous, not by identifying just one trait, but by a combination of traits and our experience), making identification of edible wild mushrooms very difficult and dangerous.
  

With Vera’s help our group was lucky enough to identify an astoundingly wide variety of mushrooms.  We found coral mushrooms (they look like they should have little tropical fish swimming in and out of their appendages), puffball mushrooms (they look like little white, inflated balloons), and helvella mushrooms (resembling a deflated black balloon) among others.  Take a look below and let me know if you can identify any of them.

You can view more photos of our field trip here.