This distinctly amphibian characteristic provides a full-body, secondary breathing system through their moist skin, both when they live in water as gilled larvae and after their impressive transformation to lung-breathing, land meandering adults. An intriguing advantage, in many ways, and perhaps helpful in that transition space if anything goes awry in the timing of gill to lung. With the introduction of contaminants from pollution to pesticides, however, permeability between animal and environment presents greater challenges, and indeed, amphibian populations world-wide are in decline. For many species, so little is known that the extent of losses are hard to estimate, which is where Community Science comes in.

My home state is home to only 1 salamander, the tiger featured above, but 5 frogs and 6 toads also share the amphibian classification. Only one university here too, but it runs a Biodiversity Institute with Community Science programs available across the state, engaging the public in data collection so research can provide more useful direction. Like amphibian skin, this kind of collaboration opens the boundaries between the edifice of Science and the passions of people.

And like new exchanges across academic borders, human empathy challenges a cultural insistence that individuals are bounded at our skin. Empathy is one reason people might sign up with a Community Science project, to better understand the predicaments and the resilient capacities of our fellow planetary travelers. As a way to grow my understanding, I signed up for the Rocky Mountain Amphibian Project, and was psyched to find a neighbor also eager to “Adopt a Catchment” nearby. Amphibians are often studied because of their unique ability to regenerate, and partnering up with my neighbor can help regenerate not just our friendship, but our neighborhood-ness, and into mysteries beyond.