What can Frogger teach us about ecology?
I’m sure most of you are familiar with the Konami video game Frogger that first appeared in arcades in 1981. I’ve certainly burned my fair share of quarters on this game – despite my significant lack of video game skills – just for the fun of it. But, I’ve been wondering lately, could one of the most iconic arcade games of the 20th century also be a good teaching tool for ecology and environmental studies?
Could one of the most iconic arcade games of the 20th century also be a good teaching tool?
I definitely learned a lot of arithmetic back in the eighties from the computer game MathBlaster (which I’m excited to see is now available in its most recent incarnation for free at www.mathblaster.com) and a lot of geography in the nineties from Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. Have we biologists dropped the ball on creating educational games that are also fun and broadly appealing? I think some biocreativity may be in order here!
As-is, Frogger can help teach some of the basics of ecology. Mr. Frogger, of course, likes to eat insects, has a habitat preference of lily pads near stream banks (preferably far away from cars) and enjoys the company of lady frogs. Major causes of mortality are apparently vehicles, alligators and snakes. I forgive the game a few inaccuracies, such as frogs die when they land in water and turtles are as large as Volkswagens that travel in packs of three.
“In the United States, roadkill has surpassed hunting in its eﬀect on vertebrate mortality.” Alisa Coffin, 2007
These days, I think a re-vamped Frogger could be really useful in illustrating how big of a threat roads actually are to amphibian populations. To get serious for a minute, several recent reports – including a 2007 paper by research geographer Alisa Coffin in the Journal of Transport Geography – indicate that road-associated mortalities may be the number one cause of wildlife mortality in the United States.
Scientists around the world are now studying the myriad effects roads can have on amphibians in addition to turning them into pancakes. Chemical runoff from roads treated with de-icing chemicals has now been linked to mass mortaily of newts and was recently discovered to drastically reduce the size of egg masses in some frog species. In addition, Coffin reports in her 2007 paper that even simple traffic noise can affect animal behavior. Some birds, for example, (and perhaps some frogs, too) have to sing more loudly in the presence of traffic noise, thereby spending more energy on communication that could otherwise be used to find food or mates. Roads (divided highways in particular) act as significant barriers to dispersal and migration of animals, fragmenting habitat and genetically separating populations over time. Roads can also increase human access to rural areas, which can lead to increased hunting pressure and/or facilitate the spread of non-native species. “Cumulatively,” Coffin writes, “road-effects interact with each other when roads are considered as [eco]systems.”
Photographs of egg masses of a salamander (top) and wood frog (bottom) from forest and roadside pools in the Adirondack Mountain Region of New York from Nancy E. Karraker & James P. Gibbs' 2011 paper in the journal Hydrobiologica (Volume 664, Number 1, pgs 213-218) entitled, "Contrasting road effect signals in reproduction of long- versus short-lived amphibians".
“To educate better…We need to see the road through the eyes of the frog.” -Dr. Mark Widome, 1991
Roadkill has been the topic of several recent news articles and blogs by National Geographic, The New York Times and New Scientist. In fact, the problem of roadkill is so serious and understudied that The University of California at Davis recently formed the Road Ecology Center, dedicated to the emerging field of “road ecology”. Think roadkill is only a problem for wildlife? Think again. A 1991 article in the medical journal Pediatrics by Dr. Mark Windome used Frogger as an illustrative tool to describe the significant threat traffic crossings have on juvenile human