Quantitative evidence for global amphibian population declines

Jeff. E. Houlahan (), C. Scott Findlay, Benedikt R. Schmidt, Andrea H. Meyer and Sergius L. Kuzmin
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Jeff. E. Houlahan: University of Ottawa
C. Scott Findlay: University of Ottawa
Benedikt R. Schmidt: University of Zürich
Andrea H. Meyer: Swiss Federal Statistical Office, Sektion Hochschulen und Wissenschaft
Sergius L. Kuzmin: Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences

Nature, 2000, vol. 404, issue 6779, 752-755

Abstract: Abstract Although there is growing concern that amphibian populations are declining globally1,2,3, much of the supporting evidence is either anecdotal4,5 or derived from short-term studies at small geographical scales6,7,8. This raises questions not only about the difficulty of detecting temporal trends in populations which are notoriously variable9,10, but also about the validity of inferring global trends from local or regional studies11,12. Here we use data from 936 populations to assess large-scale temporal and spatial variations in amphibian population trends. On a global scale, our results indicate relatively rapid declines from the late 1950s/early 1960s to the late 1960s, followed by a reduced rate of decline to the present. Amphibian population trends during the 1960s were negative in western Europe (including the United Kingdom) and North America, but only the latter populations showed declines from the 1970s to the late 1990s. These results suggest that while large-scale trends show considerable geographical and temporal variability, amphibian populations are in fact declining—and that this decline has been happening for several decades.

Date: 2000
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DOI: 10.1038/35008052

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