Monday 23 May 2016

(Are there) continental-scale drivers of amphibian decline

A new paper published in Scientific Reports (link) tested whether there are continental-scale drivers of amphibian decline (including Bd habitat suitability). Neither Bd nor other threats were found to be drivers of population decline at the continental level: "Our analysis uses data from across the United States to empirically test the relationship between change in the number of amphibian populations and hypothesized threats. We did not find support for a consistent relationship between rates of amphibian declines and distribution of stressors at the continental level."

An important finding is "that local amphibian populations are being lost from metapopulations at an average rate of 3.79% per year."

1 comment:

Dirk S. Schmeller said...

Biodiversity is highly complex and this paper only shows that we have difficulties to understand this complexity. There is no surprise in that paper and for me the conclusion is common sense. You always have to take the local conditions into consideration when you do conservation....
Dirk