Mar

25

2008
 
 

Waving goodbye to frogs



New study finds no evidence that climate change causes amphibian decline

A not so colorful future ahead?The alarming decline in global amphibian populations has been blamed on several factors including disease, climate change and habitat loss – not to mention various combinations of them. The precise causes are difficult to pin down, as often little is known about individual species, living as they do in inaccessible habitats. However, a study published this week in PLoS Biology makes a stab at analyzing what data we do have and rules out climate change as the driving force behind die-offs of harlequin frogs. Species in the Atelopus genus are a pretty endangered lot, but their scarcity owes more to the classical spread of the fungal infection chytridiomycosis than anything else. Southern Illinois University researcher Karen Lips and colleagues performed statistical tests on existing data to show that the most likely cause for amphibian declines in southern Central and northern South America is the repeated introduction of the causative pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, most likely aboard a non-native species. The findings are good news in the sense that conservation workers in regions where the disease has yet to emerge can concentrate their efforts on preventing the import of animals that could carry it. Source: Lips KR, Diffendorfer J, Mendelson JR III & Sears MW (2008) Riding the wave: reconciling the roles of disease and climate change in amphibian declines. PLoS Biology DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.0060072

Image © Darren Green

Filed Under Climate change, Endangered species, Habitat, Invasive species, Fresh water, Monitoring | 

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