Age shift in enigmatically declining Common Toad (Bufo bufo) populations linked with increased adult mortality

This is an anonymized version of the dataset repository for the scientific paper titled "Age shift in enigmatically declining Common Toad (Bufo bufo) populations linked with increased adult mortality". Once reviewed and published, this dataset will become open access.This study investigates demography and physiological stress in road killed Common Toads collected across Flanders (Belgium).Across ten declining and ten non-declining toads, we collected road killed toads. To determined age, we collected long bones and performed skeletochronology. Besides, we also determined relative telomere length and estimated snout-vent length (SVL), scaled mass index (SMI) and growth rate. Although we were not able to find a significant difference in physiological traits (SVL, SMI or growth rate) or stress between populations, we did observe a clear shift in age structure. Consequently the causes that are driving Common Toad decline are likely acute rather than chronic stressors.