Amphibian Declines in Latin America: Workshops to Design a Monitoring Protocol and Database (Mexico, Panama, & Ecuador-October and/or November 1999)

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

9975495Young, Lips & ReaserThe scientific and popular media have recently reported on alarming declines and disappearances of amphibians in the United States and around the world. Because many affected sites are in designated "protected areas", scientists fear that amphibians are being affected by climate change, emerging diseases, or pesticide drift. Latin America, where frog and toad diversity is especially high, has experienced dramatic amphibian population declines and extinctions. This project will fund three workshops to bring US and Latin American scientists together to define a strategy to address the problem. A major goal is to develop a standardized methodology for assessing the status of amphibians throughout Latin America. In addition, a database accessible via the World Wide Web will be created to make the monitoring results readily available to the world's scientists and interested lay people.The causes of amphibian population declines in both the US and Latin America are likely to be similar. Indeed, a fungal parasite first identified in Panamanian frogs has subsequently been discovered in frogs in the US. A backbone for monitoring activities will be some of the 61 protected areas in Latin America currently supported by The Nature Conservancy, an international land and water conservation organization, and the US Agency for International Development.