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Amphibians facing 'terrifying' rate of extinction

Researchers say tropical regions of richest diversity are most at risk of losing frogs, toads, newts and salamanders

Camila Ruz guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 16 November 2011 18.56 GMT
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A yellow frog (Hyla punctata) in the Colombian Amazon, one of the tropical areas where amphibians are most at risk. Photograph: Jeffrey Arguedas/EPA

If the current rapid extermination of animals, plants and other species really is the "sixth mass extinction", then it is the amphibian branch of the tree of life that is undergoing the most drastic pruning. In research described as "terrifying" by an independent expert, scientists predict the future for frogs, toads, newts and salamanders is even more bleak than conservationists had realised. Around half of amphibian species are in decline, while a third are already threatened with extinction. But scientists now predict that areas with the highest diversity of amphibian species will be under the most intense threat in the future.

And they warn that a three-pronged threat could also cause populations to decline faster than previously thought. Like many creatures, amphibians have been hit hard by climate change and habitat loss. But they have also been decimated by the spread of the deadly fungal disease chytridiomycosis. One in three of the world's amphibians are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's red list of endangered species. These include the Malagasy rainbow frog that lives in the rocky forests of Madagascar. It has the ability to inflate itself when under attack and can climb vertical rock faces. Found in an area smaller than 100 square kilometres, it is a prime target for the pet trade. The Chinese giant salamander is also critically endangered. The largest of all amphibian species, it can grow to more than a metre long. Overexploitation for food has led to a catastrophic decline in the last 30 years. European species are also threatened. Scientists predict climate change, habitat destruction and disease could drive more than half of all Europe's frogs, toads and newts to extinction within 40 years. Now the largest study of its kind has found that it is in areas where amphibian diversity is at its highest that the greatest threat lies. Researchers led by Dr Christian Hof, from the University of Copenhagen, used computer modelling to predict the impact of climate change, the effect of habitat loss from urbanisation and farming and, finally, the fungal disease on amphibian populations. "What we found looking at climate change, for example, is that many tropical regions, such as northern South America, the Andes and parts of Africa, will be highly impacted," said Hof. The team then compared this map of impact with the global distribution of more than 5,500 species of amphibians. The results, published in the Journal Nature, show that two-thirds of the areas with the richest diversity of frog and salamander species will be affected by one or more of these threats by 2080. Scientists also found that some of the threats overlapped.

The regions where amphibian populations are expected to suffer most from climate change tended to overlap with the areas that could suffer most from habitat destruction. The fungal disease, on the other hand, was more isolated. "What we still have not really understood is the mechanistic interaction between them, like how does land use change or the fragmentation of habitats influence the potential responses of a species to climate change," said Hof. Overlapping threats could mean that estimates of the rate of amphibian decline are too optimistic and that populations could decline even faster than previously thought. Helen Meredith, amphibian conservationist at the Zoological Society of London, said: "Looking into 2080, it seems there will be more extinctions of species of amphibians, which is terrifying as a third of all amphibian species are threatened with extinction now. "Data is deficient for a quarter of them, which means we don't know whether they are threatened with extinction or not and about half of all amphibian populations are in decline. And that is just what is happening at the moment." Fighting for life Kihansi spray toad Nectophrynoides asperginis Less than 2cm long, this toad is adapted to living in the spray of the Kihansi and Mhalala waterfalls in the Udzungwa mountains of Tanzania. Anderson's salamander Ambystoma andersoni Found in one lake in Mexico, it is critically endangered. The species is unusual because it is neotenous: it never develops into an adult. The Panamanian golden frog Atelopus zeteki Four-fifths of the species has been wiped out by the Chytrid fungus. Extinct in the wild. Lehmann's poison frog Dendrobates lehmanni This toxic species lives in the Colombian rainforest. Habitat destruction for logging and agriculture has left it critically endangered.

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Q&A: Biodiversity
How is biodiversity threatened and what is done to protect it?

Sonia Van Gilder Cooke guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 6 April 2010 12.14 BST
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Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth at all levels. Photographer: Paul A Souders/Corbis

What is biodiversity?
Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth at all levels: from genes to species toecosystems. An apple variety is an example of biodiversity; so is Siberian coastal tundra. Most of the time, though, biodiversity is spoken about in terms of species.

What are the benefits of biodiversity?

In two words: ecosystem services. Research has shown that diverse ecosystems are better at supplying amenities like food and clean water, and at recovering from shocks like hurricanes. Biodiversity also means options. From medicines to technologies inspired by plants andanimals, the natural world is a vast repository of potentially helpful information. This goes for food too. At the moment, humans eat about two dozen species of the thousands available. In the face of new diseases, pests, and weather patterns, cultivating a diverse portfolio of crops is the best way to ensure food security. Is it threatened? Many scientists believe the earth is undergoing a sixth great extinction event caused by humans. Extinction is natural, but scientists estimate the current pace outstrips the average rate by 100 to 1000%. About a third of assessed species worldwide are threatened with extinction in the wild. Ecosystem diversity is also vulnerable: Mediterranean-climate shrublands, for example, are more endangered than tropical rainforests. How do we know biodiversity is decreasing? Measuring biodiversity is difficult. Scientists don't know how many species exist (estimates vary from 5-30m), and of the 2m they've identified, only about 50,000 are monitored. To get a sense of how biodiversity is doing overall, conservationists have developed the Living Planet Index (LPI). It tracks the populations of 1,686 indicator species around the globe, much like a stock market index. Over the past 35 years, the index dropped 28%, suggesting biodiversity is not doing particularly well. What are the main threats to biodiversity? The greatest threat right now is habitat loss. Agriculture, grazing, and urban development divide and destroy terrestrial habitats. In the oceans, fishing trawlersscrape the sea floor while aquaculture eats up mangroves and other sensitive coastal regions.

Overexploitation for food, medicine, and materials also threatens biodiversity. Fishinghas depleted 80% of wild stocks, while deforestation and bushmeat hunting in the tropics have pushed many forest species to the brink. The thriving illegal trade in wild plants and animals is second only to the drug trade in profits, according to Interpol. What about pollution? It's a problem. Hazards range from the invisible pesticides and industrial waste poison rivers and accumulate in food chains to the inedible: thousands of sea birds and turtles die every year from ingesting bits of plastic. Fertiliser and sewage run-off causes algae blooms and marine dead zones. The CO2 that drives global warming is a pollutant,acidifying the oceans and potentially dooming biologically rich coral reefs. Is biodiversity at risk from fauna and flora, as well as humans? Sometimes. Invasive species like the water hyacinth and asian carp have run roughshod after being transported to distant parts of the globe native species are often no match for invasives in the competition for resources. On islands, where species have not evolved to cope with imported predators, invasives are as significant a danger to biodiversity as habitat destruction. What about climate change? Climate change will pose an increasing threat to biodiversity in coming decades. Conservationists set up the current global network of nature reserves with today's climate in mind. Plants and animals attempting to migrate with the changing conditions may find themselves in human territory with nowhere to go. How can we better value biodiversity? The UN has launched a global effort to calculate the value of biodiversity from crop pollination to income from tourism so it can factor into policy decisions. Biodiversity isn't always of tangible benefit to humans, despite being vital for clean water, air, food and other "services". Some say that its economic benefits are overblown, and that biological richness should be protected for its own sake.

Economists, however, call that a benefit too: "existence value" the comfort that comes from knowing biodiversity is there. What organisations exist to protect biodiversity? The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) is a conservation giant, operating 1,300 projects in 40 countries worldwide. Another powerful independent, Conservation International, has pioneered the use of biodiversity hotspots areas with many unique species at risk as a way of deciding what to protect first. The grandfather of nature conservation, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), was founded in 1948 by a large group of governments and conservation organisations. The IUCN runs the red list of threatened species, the authoritative global database on the conservation status of species worldwide. Several international treaties exist to protect biodiversity, including the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species and the Convention on Biological Diversity. This year marks the culmination of an IUCN initiative to slow biodiversity loss by 2010, and the UN has declared 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity and 22 May the International Day for Biological Diversity . Celebrations, however, may be muted: despite the participation of governments and organisations worldwide, it's unlikely that biodiversity loss will be slowed by the end of the year.
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