Amphibian Conservation Action Plan

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Amphibian Conservation Action Plan
Proceedings: IUCN/SSC Amphibian Conservation Summit 2005

Extinction is inevitable—more than 99.9% of Earth’s species are extinct (Raup 1991). David Raup went on to observe that “Extinction is a difficult research topic. No critical experiment can be performed, and inferences are all too often influenced by preconceptions based on general theory.” Studying the causes of extinction has traditionally been the purview of paleontologists and not ecologists and evolutionary biologists working on contemporary systems. But accelerating losses in many species late in the 20^th century have altered the scholarship of extinction by bringing the extinction events typical of evolutionary time within the dimensions of ecological time.

Beginning in the late 1980s, an especially prominent example of a global loss of biodiversity came to light as herpetologists reported amphibians had gone missing within protected parks and reserves. Since then research has shown that modern amphibian declines and extinctions have no precedent in any animal class over the last few millennia (Stuart Et al. 2004). About 32% of some 6000 amphibian species are threatened as compared to12% of bird and 23% of mammal species. Up to 122 amphibian species may be extinct since 1980, and population size is declining in at least 43% of species. In the last decades of the 20^th century the amphibian extinction rate exceeded the mean extinction rate of the last 350 million years by at least 200 times (Roelants et al. 2007). Recent amphibian declines are an opportunity to study the causes of extinction in recent, not ancient, populations.

Amphibian losses have engendered research and conservation programs, and a general call to prevent more species declines and extinctions in this vertebrate class (Mendelson et al. 2006). Responding will require a novel, and cross-disciplinary initiative such as the Amphibian Conservation Action Plan or ACAP.

The global loss of amphibians illustrates how the world is changing, and in response conservation practices must also evolve. In the last decades of the 20^thcentury researchers identified and promoted the conservation of local areas of great biological diversity – hotspots or regions with many endemic or otherwise distinctive species. Physical and political protection was provided for these places, but since the 1980’s, field research and anecdotal observations indicate that amphibians have gone missing in diverse geographic areas and environments regardless of the protection afforded by these locations. In 1990 the Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force (DAPTF) within the Species Survival Commission of IUCN was formed “to determine the nature, extent and causes of declines of amphibians throughout the world, and to promote means by which declines can be halted or reversed.” When DAPTF was formed researchers were uncertain as to whether the disappearances were cyclical phenomena suddenly more widespread, but subsequent to the first Global Amphibian Assessment (Stuart et al. 2004) [GAA] the debate has shifted to understanding and mitigating the forces causing declines.

The first GAA documented the breadth of amphibian losses worldwide and made it clear that business as usual–the customary conservation approaches and practices—were not working. This realization led to the assembly in September 2005 of the Amphibian Conservation Summit convened by SSC-IUCN and Conservation International. Some 80 delegates from around the world spent four days in Washington, D.C., working on a comprehensive plan to respond to the ongoing losses of amphibian species. In addition to novel challenges such as emerging infectious diseases, toxins, and climate change, delegates also addressed familiar threats like land use change, unsustainable taking, and exotic species. The delegates acknowledged that we had a poor understanding of the complex relationships among all the factors.

The Amphibian Conservation Summit of 2005 produced a consensus among academic scientists, conservation practitioners, and knowledgeable individuals influential in diverse societal contexts (see the ACS Declaration, Appendix 1). A subset of the ACS delegation (Appendix 2) also wrote ACAP, which is a multidisciplinary approach that provides a way forward in addressing the causes of declines and slowing or reversing the losses. There is not a single answer to preventing the extinction of more species, and as a result the plan will evolve as new information becomes available. For the first time, however, in ACAP we have a response that is at the scale of the challenge. Now we need to put the plan into action.

Edited by: Claude Gascon, James P. Collins, Robin D. Moore, Don R. Church, Jeanne McKay, Joseph Mendelson II

Published by: The World Conservation Union (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland

Copyright: © 2007 International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources

Citation: Gascon, C., Collins, J. P., Moore, R. D., Church, D. R., McKay, J. E. and Mendelson, J. R. III (eds). 2007. “Amphibian Conservation Action Plan.” IUCN/SSC Amphibian Specialist Group. Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UK. 64pp.

ISBN: 978-2-8317-1008-2

Contents

Chapter 2, Freshwater Resources and Associated Terrestrial Landscapes
M. Lannoo, C. Funk, M. Gadd, T. Halliday and J. Mitchell

Chapter 3, Climate Change, Biodiversity Loss, and Amphibian Declines
A. Pounds, A.C.O.Q. Carnaval and S. Corn

Chapter 4, Infectious Diseases
P. Daszak, K. Lips, R. Alford, C. Carey, J.P. Collins, A. Cunningham, R. Harris and S. Ron

Chapter 5, Over-harvesting
A. I. Carpenter, H. Dublin, M. Lau, G. Syed, J. E. McKay and R. D. Moore

Chapter 6, Evaluating the Role of Environmental Contamination in Amphibian Population Declines
M. D. Boone, D. Cowman, C. Davidson, T. Hayes, W. Hopkins, R. Relyea, L. Schiesari, R. Semlitsch

Chapter 7, Captive Programs
J.R. Mendelson III, R. Gagliardo, F. Andreone, K.R. Buley, L. Coloma, G. Garcia, R. Gibson, R. Lacy, M.W. Lau, J. Murphy, R. Pethiyagoda, K. Pelican, B.S. Pukazhenthi, G. Rabb, J. Raffaelli, B. Weissgold, D. Wildt and Xie Feng

Appendix A, Genome Resource Banking
B. S. Pukazhenthi, K. Pelican, D. Wildt

Chapter 8, Reintroductions
R. Griffiths, K. Buhlmann, J. McKay, and T. Tuberville

Chapter 9, The Continuing Need for Assessments: Making the Global Amphibian Assessment an Ongoing Process
S. Stuart

Chapter 10, Systematics and Conservation
G. Parra, R. Brown, J. Hanken, B. Hedges, R. Heyer, S. Kuzmin, E. Lavilla, S. Lötters, B. Pimenta, S. Richards, M.O. Rödel, R.O. de Sá and D. Wake

Chapter 11, Bioresource Banking Efforts in Support of Amphibian Conservation
O.A. Ryder

Chapter 12, References

Appendix 1, Declaration to the Amphibian Conservation Summit

Appendix 2, Amphibian Conservation Summit

R. Griffiths, K. Buhlmann, J. McKay, and T. Tuberville

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