Boreal Chorus Frog

This species can be found around permanent water bodies in cleared land and forest. Males make a "reeeek" call from grasses, vegetation, or ground around the water body from April through to September. This call is characteristic of the trilling frog clade that is present in the genus Pseudacris. This clade is so named because the call of each individual is different, each having its own series of pulses. Pseudacris maculata is categorized as an annual breeder. Breeding takes place once the weather begins to warm, typically from late February to around April. After mating, a single female can lay anywhere from 500-1500 eggs, with a highly variable hatching rate of anywhere from 37% to 87%. The life cycle continues with tadpoles metamorphosing around June or July. The metamorphosis survival rate also has a massive range of 10-100% in the wild.

Amphibians are widely known as very important species in their ecosystems, but declines are occurring worldwide in amphibian populations. There are multiple reasons that amphibians decline, with the most common being disease, habitat loss, over harvesting for food, pet trade, and competition with invasive species. Climate change has also been one of the proposed mechanisms for why this species is struggling. Climate change is causing the weather to become increasingly dry, which affects most amphibians (including Pseudacris maculata). This change leads them to modify their behavior based on the environmental conditions and sometimes exposing them to conditions that are not optimal. The addition of an invasive species will be very successful until the tadpoles learn to avoid it, which could cause even more pressure on this species. Amphibians worldwide are being infected with the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and the boreal chorus frog is no exception. Bd infects the keratinized skin of its host, which results in an inability to properly osmoregulate through the skin. The symptoms to this disease vary between species, ranging from seemingly unaffected to death. There have been many studies examining how this species copes with an infection of Bd. Some studies claim that Pseudacris maculata is struggling, while others show that populations are maintaining themselves. These facts, on top of the fact that Bd can also infect salamanders and frogs in all stages of life result in the pathogen persisting in an environment long enough to continually infect new frogs (9,11). Tadpoles can be infected on their mouth parts (which is the only location of keratinized skin) and frogs post-metamorphosis can be infected almost anywhere (but primarily on the toes). Boreal chorus frogs in areas that contain salamanders capable of surviving with Bd cannot escape this disease, which could be why some populations are declining.