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What's up, Chicago? I'm Erin Allen, and this is Curious City.

So I've spoken to the majority of my life living in an urban city, mostly in Detroit and Chicago.

And I'm sure you know what I mean when I say concrete jungle.

But also, I grew up going camping, hiking, going skiing. My family was in the city, but we was also outside.

And the same is true for Dr. Allison Sassardotte Vallette.

She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, but...

Despite growing up in the city,

my parents made sure we spent time in nature.

They would take us to the parks within the city, and we'd find salamanders under logs, and we'd look for frogs.

Dr. Allison is the curator of biology and herpetology and vice president of conservation research

at Chicago Academy of Sciences and the Peggy Notabart Nature Museum.

And speaking of frogs, you might remember her from our last episode about the declining frog population in Chicago.

She said that frogs are some of the animals we call indicator species.

So an indicator species could be any organism that shows some degree of sensitivity or vulnerability to environmental change.

So if you were to look at population size or distribution of a particular species, or its growth rate, or its reproductive output.

These are kind of metrics that can inform us about how a species is responding to different changes in the environment. And how they respond indicates how that environment is doing, which affects everything in and around it, including us humans.

...