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  BBC 7 Jul 06
Clarion call to save amphibians

EurekAlert 6 Jul 06
Major initiative proposed to address amphibian crisis
 Oregon State University

Corvallis, Ore. – Fifty of the leading amphibian researchers in the world have called for a new Amphibian Survival Alliance, a $400 million initiative to help reduce and prevent amphibian declines and extinctions, an ecological crisis of growing proportion that is continuing to get worse.

In a policy statement to be published Friday in the journal Science, the scientists say that 32 percent of all amphibian species are threatened and at least nine – perhaps as high as 122 – have become extinct since 1980.

It's time, they say, for a more organized and effective approach to address the various diseases, habitat loss, invading species and other causes of this problem.

"This is part of an overall biodiversity crisis, and amphibians seem to have been hit the hardest of all vertebrate species," said Andrew Blaustein, a professor of zoology at Oregon State University and one of the pioneers in this field, who first helped document amphibian declines almost 20 years ago.

"These are bioindicators that something is wrong with the planet," he said. "But amphibians play a major role in many ecosystems, in some places the amphibian biomass is greater than that of all the other vertebrates. The long term ecological repercussions of their decline could be profound, and we have to do something about it."

Programs of research, training, monitoring, salvage operations, disease management, captive breeding, and other efforts are envisioned under the new initiative, which may include a global network of centers for amphibian recovery and protection. Support from individuals, government agencies, foundations, and the conservation community will be sought, the researchers said in their report.

Amphibians have been around for more than 300 million years, thriving before the dinosaurs and living long after they and many other species had disappeared. Their dramatic decline and extinctions now has alarmed many researchers since it first became apparent in the past two decades.

"Amphibians have sensitive skin, they live in both land and water, have no protective hair or feathers, and their eggs have no hard outer shell," Blaustein said. "So it's clear why they may be vulnerable on some levels. However, they persisted for hundreds of millions of years and just now are disappearing in many areas."

Some of the causes have been identified. Rising levels of ultraviolet radiation, increases in pollutants, pesticides, extensive habitat loss due to agriculture or urbanization, invasive species, and various fungal diseases have all been implicated.

In viewing this issue, some biologists have called amphibians the "canary in the coal mine" - the first clear and sweeping biological example of environmental change, pollution and toxicity that may ultimately affect many other animal species, including humans.

The demise of amphibians also has ecological ripple effects – they provide a major control of insect pests, and in turn serve as part of the food supply for birds, fish and other animals. The demise of entire species also eliminates their possible use in biomedicine and biotechnology.

One of the leading problems is a fungus that causes an infectious disease called chytridiomycosis, the researchers said in their Science report. In places where it is introduced and has not previously been present, amphibian populations may disappear rapidly, sometimes within six months, the researchers said. Global climate change, the commercial trade of wildlife, and pollution may all increase the movement or susceptibility to this fungus.

"There are a lot of concerns, and we should work to address all of them, not just one," Blaustein said. "At first we need to focus our efforts on research so we have a better idea of what types of recovery programs will best work, and then we need active projects in the field."

Scientists at OSU and the University of California/Berkeley were among the first in the world to sound the alarm bell about amphibian decline, publishing some professional papers in the early 1990s that alerted the world to the magnitude of this problem.

One publication by this group has been listed as the 10th most cited paper ever in the journal Conservation Biology. OSU researchers also were among the first to link amphibian declines directly to global climate change, in a process that traced global warming ultimately to a catastrophic egg mortality in the western toad of the Pacific Northwest Cascade Range.

Work is continuing at OSU today on contaminants and the effects of UVB solar radiation that may amplify the impacts of the fungus which causes chytridiomycosis.

Amphibian declines have been documented in North and South America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Several species in the Pacific Northwest are listed as candidates for the endangered species list.

More than a dozen species have disappeared from Australia in recent years. And the problem appears to be getting worse.

Traditional programs and current laws and policies alone are insufficient to address global threats that cross boundaries of reserves and nations, the scientists said in their report.

BBC 7 Jul 06
Clarion call to save amphibians

Hundreds of amphibian species will become extinct unless a global action plan is put into practice very soon, conservationists warn.

Campaigners are forming an Amphibian Survival Alliance, to raise $400m and carry through a rescue strategy.

More than a third of all amphibian species are said to be in peril. In a policy statement issued in the journal Science, researchers blame a number of factors including habitat loss, climate change and disease.

"We have a huge crisis but I'm confident we can produce some real results," said Simon Stuart, from Conservation International (CI). "The questions is: how many species will we lose? Are we going to lose hundreds before we can stabilise the situation or are we going to lose just tens," he told the BBC News website. "Time is absolutely crucial, and to beat time we need human recourses and expertise, and finance."

Policy pressure

Dr Stuart led the Global Amphibian Assessment which reported in 2004. It confirmed the scale of the long-suspected collapse in many populations. There are almost 6,000 known amphibians, a category which includes frogs, toads, salamanders and caecilians (legless amphibians).

Of these, nearly 2,000 are now judged to be at risk of extinction. Between nine and 122 species have slipped over the edge to oblivion since 1980, when the assessment said the most dramatic declines began.

The losses are caused by land-use change; commercial overexploitation; invasive species pushing out native amphibians; and a wave of disease.

The situation led to a summit last year being called in Washington DC, where a global action plan was agreed. In this week's edition of the journal Science, leading conservationists announce the creation of an Amphibian Survival Alliance which will co-ordinate the initiative - pushing forward research, field programmes, captive breeding and making sure the "global crisis" remains at the forefront of policy-making.

Amphibian 'ark'

The biggest single threat to amphibians at the moment appears to be a fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis ; first identified 1998, it is firmly established in parts of the Americas, Australia and Europe.

The disease which it causes, chytridiomycosis, kills the animals by damaging their sensitive skins, blocking the passage of air and moisture. In some instances where the spread of this disease was rampant, conservationists would have little choice but to take an "ark" approach", said Dr Stuart.

"The only option we have is to take the most vulnerable species out of the wild and put them in captive holding stations and breed them. It's being done in Panama and Colombia. Some of the rarest species are being plucked out before they go," he explained.

The new alliance will be led by an international secretariat of the Amphibian Specialist Group of the Species Survival Commission of the World Conservation Union, also known as the IUCN.

An initial five-year budget of $400m (£220m) is needed. Longer term, much more will be required.

"It is achievable; it can be done," said Dr Stuart, the senior director of CI's biodiversity assessment unit. "Some of the money, of course, overlaps with action that needs to take place anyway for biodiversity more broadly, with the focus on conserving key habitats in the wild. Not all of the funds have to be raised under the amphibian name."
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