Amphibians are some of the best indicators of ecosystem health because they’re — sorry chill frogs out there — kind of fragile. In general, they are rather susceptible to pollution, and many amphibian species live in small, sensitive habitats that are sensitive to destruction and climate change. (Wikipedia actually has pretty good background on this one.) That’s not to mention diseases like chytridiomycosis, which is decimating populations worldwide. What’s the takeaway? Well, according to biologists speaking at the IUCN’s annual conservation meeting, amphibians in Asia are going extinct so quickly that we can’t even classify all of them.From the Guardian:“These creatures are disappearing before we even know they exist. We know this is happening – this has already been shown in cases such as Sri Lanka,” said Bruce Waldman, associate professor at Seoul National University in Korea. “These are living jewels – but we don’t know even how many we have, and we are not saving them.”
He said rapid economic development in Asia was taking a toll on amphibians, with an increase in the level of nitrogen pollution in the water, from fertiliser use, and habitats being rapidly destroyed.As we saw with the new monkey species that popped up this week, identifying a distinct species takes at least a few representative individuals, something that can prove impossible as populations decline to the point of extinction.Sometimes, species can be identified after they go extinct, like in the case of some Caribbean lizards, but a much larger problem looms: With amphibian populations declining so rapidly, it’s impossible to tell how many species might be disappearing before we’ve even seen them.The worrisome aspect, aside from losing all kinds of beautiful frogs, toads, salamanders and the like, is that amphibians are crucial to the nutrient cycles of their local habitats, especially considering they provide a link between aquatic and terrestrial habitats. Losing them will have a definite negative impact on their immediate environment, and cascade effects in terms of nutrient cycling and the food chain could be devastating when you extrapolate it to the global scale.Follow Derek Mead on Twitter: @derektmead.
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