In the animal kingdom there are many traits that can make it easier, or more difficult, to survive. This is a basic concept of natural selection in that those traits that make survival easier will be more likely to be passed down to future generations than those that make it more difficult.

One trait that is seen across many different species is being albino, where the body does not produce melanin, leaving them with very white skin, pink eyes, and a variety of other traits. For years, most people believed that this condition was very rare because the coloring made it hard for the animal to hide from predators or made it so their prey could see and avoid them more easily.

While those two things are undoubtedly true, a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences took a deeper look to get a better picture of why albino animals are at such a disadvantage. The team of scientists is from the Macquarie University in Australia, and they performed their experiment on the cane toad.

The cane toad is from Latin America, and it is an invasive species in Australia and other parts of the world. It is seen as a pest because it can reproduce so effectively, causing serious problems in the ecosystem. One of the things the researchers were doing with this study was looking for ways to help control the population of the invasive animal.

Using the CRISPR-Cas9 tool, the researchers edited the toad eggs to turn off a gene known as tyrosinase, which is responsible for making skin pigmentation. The lead author of the study, Alex Funk, is a PhD Candidate at Macquarie University’s School of Natural Sciences. He talked with IFLScience about the study, saying:

“We are researching a genetic method for cane toad control, and we initially created the albino toads as a proof-of-concept. While rearing the toads, we noticed that they seemed to be growing more slowly and surviving less often than their pigmented siblings, which inspired this study.”

They also found that the albino tadpoles would metamorphose into adult toads earlier than the normal toads. This could be a sign of stress. Having these various disadvantages was especially interesting because the toads did not have any threat from predators and they had no trouble finding food, since they were bred in a lab. This points to the fact that it is not just the reduced ability to hunt or the increased risk of being hunted that can make life for an albino more difficult.

The team performed experiments on a variety of activities, and found that the albino toads did have poor vision compared to the pigmented animals. Funk explained:

“Albino individuals cannot produce melanin, which plays an important role in the development of the retina. Without melanin, the retina’s development is disrupted. This can lead to reduced visual acuity and impaired stereoscopic vision.”

These findings are not surprising, but being able to expand the understanding of how this condition can make survival is important. The team of researchers believes that the results of their study can be applied to other animals beyond this species as well. Funk said:

“These findings can certainly be applied to other species – especially those that rely heavily on vision to find food. If visual predators like frogs, predatory birds, and big cats cannot hunt effectively due to poor eyesight associated with albinism, they are likely to be outcompeted by pigmented competitors.”

Whether this study will help to control the population of the toad in Australia is not known, but the more they can learn about these (and any invasive species) the better people can be at helping to manage populations in the future.

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