FrogID dataset 5.0: the largest source of Australian frog data ever released

Close to 800,000 Australian frog records now online and open access for conservation.

Australia has a unique, diverse and highly threatened frog fauna, but there is still so much we don’t know. Right now, 253 native species of Australian frog are currently recognised, but an incredible seven species have been added to the tally in the last two years alone.

Since 2017, tens of thousands of people across Australia have helped build the largest national database of frogs anywhere in the world. Together, simply by recording calling frogs using the FrogID app, we have now revolutionised our understanding of Australia’s frogs. Here, we announce the release of the latest dataset of FrogID records – time-stamped locations of frog species across the country.

The FrogID dataset 5.0 contains almost 800,000 records of frogs! The rate of data accumulation is particularly astonishing - collecting frog occurrence records about two and a half times faster than all other data sources. As a result, this FrogID dataset is now almost equal in size to all other frog records ever gathered (Atlas of Living Australia). Other citizen science platforms are also contributing important frog records, the largest contributors being the photo-based platforms iNaturalist (around 54,000 records) and NatureMapr (around 10,000 records).

The complete FrogID dataset 5.0 contains records of 218 of Australia’s frog species, including the introduced Cane Toad (Rhinella marina) – 86% of Australia’s frog species. The most commonly recorded species in the dataset remains steady across years, with the Common Eastern Froglet (Crinia signifera) again taking out the top spot, with over 141,000 records! Some notable submissions in the latest dataset include Western Australia’s Sunset Frog (Spicospina flammocaerulea) and Southern Sandhill Frog (Arenophryne xiphorhyncha), the tiny Ratcheting Toadlet (Uperoleia stridera) from arid Western Australia and the Northern Territory, along with the Critically Endangered Kroombit Tree Frog (Litoria kroombitensis) from Kroombit Tops in southeast Queensland.

The FrogID dataset 5.0 contains thousands of records of other threatened frog species, including almost 2,400 records of the tiny Endangered Sloane’s Froglet (Crinia sloanei) from inland New South Wales and north central Victoria and over 800 records of the Vulnerable Southern Bell Frog (Litoria raniformis). Following ethical data publication guidelines, we consider certain, mostly threatened, frog species as ‘sensitive’ species, and the exact locality of these species is buffered to 0.1 decimal degrees (about 11km). Very highly threatened frog species recorded via FrogID, such as the Critically Endangered Myola Tree Frog (Litoria myola) are not included in the public dataset. This is a tiny fraction of the dataset and the exact locality data for all sensitive species is provided to state biodiversity atlases to help inform conservation. They can also be requested from the FrogID project.

The FrogID database is a huge and growing resource, used by scientists, government, land-managers and people passionate about Australia’s frogs. In the last year alone, the FrogID database has provided insight into the spread of the Eastern Dwarf Tree Frog across eastern Australia (read more), whether habitat can influence the advertisement calls of frogs (read more), and has helped us update the publicly-available Australian Frog Atlas (read more). We thank everyone who has contributed to this dataset, and hope you enjoy exploring the latest version!

Dr Jodi Rowley

Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum Research Institute & UNSW Sydney.

Primary citation for FrogID data

Rowley JJL, & Callaghan CT (2020) The FrogID dataset: expert-validated occurrence records of Australia’s frogs collected by citizen scientists. ZooKeys 912: 139-151.

Other FrogID publications

https://www.frogid.net.au/science

More information

Explore data through the FrogID website

Data published through Atlas of Living Australia

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the Citizen Science Grants of the Australian Government and the Impact Grants program of IBM Australia for providing funding and resources to help build the initial FrogID App; the generous donors who have provided funding for the project including the James Kirby Foundation; the NSW Biodiversity Conservation Trust and the Department of Planning and Environment – Water, and the Saving our Species program as Supporting Partners; the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Museums Victoria, Queensland Museum, South Australian Museum, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, and Western Australian Museum as FrogID partner museums; the many Australian Museum staff and volunteers who make up the FrogID team; and, most importantly, the thousands of citizen scientists across Australia who have volunteered their time to record frogs.