Trends in amphibian occupancy in the United States.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 23717602.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0064347 and PMC identifier 3661441.
- Licence recorded as CC0.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Though a third of amphibian species worldwide are thought to be imperiled, existing assessments simply categorize extinction risk, providing little information on the rate of population losses. We conducted the first analysis of the rate of change in the probability that amphibians occupy ponds and other comparable habitat features across the United States. We found that overall occupancy by amphibians declined 3.7% annually from 2002 to 2011. Species that are Red-listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) declined an average of 11.6% annually. All subsets of data examined had a declining trend including species in the IUCN Least Concern category. This analysis suggests that amphibian declines may be more widespread and severe than previously realized.
Medical subject headings
- Amphibians