Assessing the Risks of Extreme Droughts to Amphibian Populations in the Northwestern Mediterranean

Eudald Pujol-Buxó and Albert Montori ()
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Eudald Pujol-Buxó: Societat Catalana d’Herpetologia (SCH), 08019 Barcelona, Spain
Albert Montori: CREAC, Centre de Recerca i Educació Ambiental de Calafell, Secció Herpetologia, Aj, Calafell, 43882 Tarragona, Spain

Land, 2025, vol. 14, issue 8, 1-32

Abstract: Amphibians are particularly vulnerable to hydric stress due to their permeable skin, biphasic life cycle, and strong dependence on aquatic and moist terrestrial environments. In the Northwestern Mediterranean Basin—one of Europe’s most climate-sensitive regions—the intensification of droughts associated with climate change poses a critical threat to amphibian populations. Increased aridification, either due to higher temperatures or to more frequent, prolonged, and severe drought episodes, can affect both aquatic and terrestrial life stages, directly altering breeding opportunities, larval development, post-metamorphic survival, and dispersal capacity. This review aims to gather and synthesize current knowledge on the ecological, physiological, and demographic impacts of drought on amphibians of the Northwestern Mediterranean across habitat types, including ephemeral ponds, permanent water bodies, lotic systems, and terrestrial landscapes, including a final section on possible mitigation actions. Drought-induced shifts in hydroperiod can drastically reduce reproductive success and accelerate larval development with fitness consequences while, on land, desiccation risk and habitat degradation could limit access to refugia and fragment populations by reducing structural connectivity. These environmental constraints are compounded by the interactions between drought and emerging infectious diseases. We discuss the current knowledge on how chytrid fungi ( Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and B. salamandrivorans ) and ranaviruses may respond to temperature and moisture regimes, and how drought may affect their transmission dynamics, host susceptibility, and pathogen persistence. In these cases, microbiome disruption, pollutant concentration, and increased contact rates between species may amplify disease outbreaks under dry conditions, but a better understanding of the multifactorial effects of drought on amphibian biology and disease ecology is needed for predicting species vulnerability, identifying high-risk populations, and guiding future conservation and management strategies in Mediterranean environments.

Keywords: drought; amphibia; lotic; lentic; emerging diseases; climatic change; Northwestern Mediterranean Basin; hydroperiod (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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