Anne Ibbotson

Anne is a veterinarian and PhD student in the Conservation Science Research Group at the University of Newcastle, and she is developing minimally invasive methods to measure stress, reproduction and immune function in endangered frogs. These ‘biomarkers’ should improve our understanding of health and fitness in these amphibians and the impacts of complex threats that they face from disease, human activities and climate change.

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To do this, Anne is collecting urine and saliva samples to measure hormones from populations of the green and golden bell frog (Litoria aurea) and Littlejohns tree frog (Litoria littlejohni) that live locally in the Newcastle area and the central coast.

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Her goal is to integrate biomarkers with current ecological survey methods to improve monitoring of conservation actions and to better inform future conservation decisions for threatened amphibians.