Karnataka couple teams up international scientists to study dancing frogs

Mangaluru/ Bengaluru: Along with eight other researchers, Dr Gururaja KV, a batrachologist at the Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design and Technology, and his wife Dr Priti Gururaja, studied the foot flagging behaviour among frogs in the Western Ghats, a paper on which ‘A Common Endocrine Signature Marks the Convergent Evolution of An Elaborate Dance Display in Frogs’ was published in the October edition of ‘American Naturalist’.
However, what has made the two scientists achievement more noteworthy is that the couple decided to publish the abstract of the research paper in Kannada. Their objective was to infuse into Kannada scientific terms, which will make it easy for the common public to discuss complex concepts. Furthermore, the couple hopes it encourages other scientists to publish entire papers in Kannada.
“This is an attempt to reach out to a wider audience. There may not be equivalent terms for many of the English words in the scientific paper in Kannada. By publishing the abstract in Kannada, we are hoping to introduce the public to a vocabulary that can be used in common parlance. We are also hoping that this helps people overcome their hesitation to publish their papers in Kannada. The primary objective of research is that it must reach the people, and they mist understand the rich biodiversity in their own backyard, and the Western Ghats,” said Gururaja.
Nigel K Anderson, Eric R Schuppe, Lisa A Mangiamele, Juan Carlos Cusi Martinez, Rudolf von, Doris Preininger and Matthew J Fuxjager were the other researchers involved in the study. The team tried to ascertain what triggered foot flagging among the frogs, wherein the male frog arches and rotates its back foot in the air, an unmistakable visual sign. The paper lends a new dimension towards explaining this action among frogs.
“We have tried to analyse this habit among frog species across the globe,” said Gururaja, whose wife Priti works at the Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. The team of experts examined the Kottigehar Dancing Frog, the scientific name of which is Micrixalus Kottigeharensis.
He pointed out that there were around 24 species of dancing frogs in the Western Ghats. “We are now aware that frogs across 18 species exhibit the foot flagging habit. In India, the male frogs engage in this habit to defend their territory from other intruding males, while the female specimens do it to cover their egg clutches in a slow-flowing stream. For our study, we considered only the male frogs. This is a 12-year-long collaborative effort with Dr Doris Preininger from the University of Vienna. We undertook the study after obtaining permission from the National Biodiversity Authority and the forest department in Karnataka,” Gururaja added.