SGER: Assessing the Ecological Consequences of Amphibian Declines: Emergency Sampling Along a Moving Disease Front in Panamá

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Amphibians represent a significant component of terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity and an energetic link between aquatic and terrestrial habitats, particularly in the tropics where amphibian diversity and abundance are very high. However, amphibians have declined dramatically around the world, including catastrophic losses in 13 Latin American countries in the last 20 years, with no indication of recovery. This research examines the ecological consequences of disease-driven amphibian declines by investigating how losses alter food webs, energy flow, and nutrient cycling in streams and energy exchanges between streams and terrestrial habitats. This will be accomplished through continued intensive monitoring of ecosystem structure and function in Panamanian streams that experienced a massive decline in 2005. In addition, a stable isotope tracer addition will be used to model nitrogen cycling in a stream that currently has abundant amphibians but is directly in the path of the disease. Disease-driven amphibian declines represent catastrophic losses of biodiversity. Studies to date in these systems suggest that amphibian declines have large-scale effects on streams, including changes in stream and riparian food web structure, changes in algal communities and production, altered quality of transported organic materials, and reduced energy transfers from streams to terrestrial habitats.