Networks of urban drainage ponds not only help to control surface water in our towns and cities, but they also support the genetic diversity of frogs, according to a new report.

Researchers from NatureScot and the University of Salford studied 34 common frog populations in and around Inverness to find out if the frogs that breed in sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) suffered from lower genetic diversity than rural frog populations.

The study found that in fact the SuDS ponds had the same levels of genetic variation as rural ponds, with no evidence of inbreeding in any of the populations studied.

It’s thought that this could be because these relatively new SuDS ponds are often built alongside nature-rich green spaces, which offer good breeding habitat and connectivity, allowing frogs to move between ponds and helping to conserve genetic variation in the species.