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Every day, we are faced with a thousand ways to die.

Yet, for the most part, we are able to assess the world around us and make decisions to avoid such a fate. Similarly, animals are faced with a myriad of dangers throughout the day and must make decisions that involve assessing their environment (i.e., where to breed?) and other animals (i.e., who is family? Who is foe?). Both adult and juvenile forms of many species have evolved an incredible range of traits that give them an edge over death: from long-distance navigation and kin recognition to complex social dynamics and intensive parental care, there are many examples of species successfully managing to survive harsh environments, competition, and predators.

Chloé Fouilloux’s work paints a vivid picture of parenthood, family, and growing up from an animal’s perspective. She has studied a South American poison frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) that is known for its intensive parental care. Unlike most frogs, this species lays its eggs on land, and fathers then transport recently hatched tadpoles on their backs to small pools of water formed by vegetation (like in the hole of a tree) that serve as nurseries for tadpoles throughout development.

Surviving an ephemeral world

Fouilloux discovered that D. tinctorius are one of the most flexible vegetation-breeding species of the low-land Neotropics. Fathers transport tadpoles from the forest floor to more than 20 metres up trees, leaving their young to develop in a wide range of habitats where they are faced with diverse sources of risk. Left to develop in nurseries that can evaporate within a sunny afternoon, one of the most common stressors faced by D. tinctorius are tadpoles of the same species, as D. tinctorius are aggressive cannibals.

— Despite being infamous for consuming conspecifics, I established that larvae can recognise kin and decrease aggression towards more closely related individuals, says Fouilloux.

From an ecological perspective, Fouilloux found that tadpoles use vision to assess their environment and rely on this modality to recognize potential predators. The role of vision, however, is complex as the turbidity of a tadpole’s rearing environment affects their response to visual stimuli. These data suggest that the development of tadpole eyes may be affected by the light availability which has far-reaching implications for the relationship between environmental disturbance and predator-prey interactions.

Fouilloux has dedicated the latter part of her thesis to understanding the occurrence of a globally distributed fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, which has caused the decline of hundreds of amphibian species. Specifically, she investigated where this pathogen is distributed throughout the environment and how it may be transmitted between life stages in D. tinctorius.

In its entirely, Fouilloux’s work explores how young offspring mediate the consequences of their parent’s choices. From environmental disturbance to navigating potential predators, Fouilloux’s findings have diverse applications in research that range from theoretical biology to applied conservation efforts.

This thesis includes Fouilloux's research "Visual environment of rearing sites affects larval response to perceived risk in poison frogs", which was published as an article in the Journal of Experimental Biology in May 2023. Read the article: .

B.Sc. Chloé Fouilloux defends her doctoral dissertation ”Facing enemies in an ephemeral world: Tadpole responses to biological and environmental risk” on 11.8.2023 at 12:00 in lecture hall S212 in Seminaarinmäki. Opponent is Professor Rebecca Kilner (University of Cambridge, UK) and custos is Academic Research Fellow Bibiana Rojas (Ģ��ֱ��). The language of the dissertation is English.

Live broadcast is available at

Publication details:

The thesis “Facing enemies in an ephemeral world: Tadpole responses to biological and environmental risk” is available in the JYX repository: