Environment Case Australia

Introduction

Australia has been facing up to two problems of environment which are cane toads and air pollution by particulate matter. The cane toads were deliberately introduced in Australia from 1935 in an attempt to stop cane beetle and greyback cane beetle from destroying sugar cane crop in North of Queensland. They are the largest species in their family with typical average-size of adult between 10 -15 cm long and eventually they can grow up to 23 cm or more (Tyler, 1975). All life stages of the cane toads are toxins and although toxin types and content differ from eggs, tadpoles, metamorphs and adults (Hayes et al. 2009). As a result many native animals are affected by cane toads and leading to undesired impacts on environment. Another problem is atmospheric particulate matter (PM), which are the PM10 (mass concentration of particles 10.0 mm) and PM2.5 (particles 2.5 mm) with growing concerns about the potential human health effects of suspended particulate matter in the air. The cane toads and air pollution by particulate matter will be demonstrated their impacts on the environment and shown what is the major environmental pollutant in Australia.

Discussion

The cane toads are not native animals in Australia, which were imported with the purpose of controlling sugar cane pets. However, the cane toads have a lot of impacts on ecosystems such as spread rapidly in tropical regions and native animals are vulnerable to cane toad toxin and are often killed when cane toads first arrive in area which results in a reduction of population.

The distribution of cane toad in Australia in 2006

(Richard Shine, 2010)

The cane toad were introduced in the north-eastern Queensland in 1935 and now they have spread through much of Queensland, northern New South Wales and the wet-dry tropics of the Northern Territory. In 2009, they crossed the border into Western Australia. Because the cane toads eat a wide variety of prey and they also have greater fecundity than native anurans. For example, Tyler (1975) estimated that females of cane toads lay 8,000 to 35,000 eggs at a time and usually breed twice a year. The cane toads develop rapidly in tropical regions and attain very high densities. Although with the clear preference for anthropogenically degraded sites they stand a broad range of environmental and climatic conditions and take up a wide range of habitats (Urban et al. 2007). Phillips et al. (2007) suggested that in his surveys of the location of the toad invasion front in 2001 to 2005, and radiotracking of toads at the front near Darwin in 2005, reveal much faster westwards expansion than was recorded in earlier stages of toad invasion through Queensland. Since reaching the wet-dry tropics of the NorthernTerritory, the toads have progressed an average of approximately 55 km per year. Finally, Sutherst

...