In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, frogs, salamanders and caecilians remain the most threatened group of vertebrates on Earth. According to the latest global assessment, more than 40 percent of amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

“Amphibians are disappearing faster than we can study them,” explains environmentalist Kelsey Neem, “but the list of reasons to protect them is long, including their role in medicine, pest control, alerting us to environmental conditions, and making the planet more beautiful.”

Although disease and habitat loss had reduced the amphibian population by 90 percent by 2004, the city had a new main culprit: climate change.

The impact of our changing weather systems and the resulting effects on environmental conditions are now responsible for a 39 percent decline in this ancient group of animals. Despite decades of calls from conservationists to protect these magnificent and extraordinary animals, habitat loss remains stubbornly high at 37 percent.

“These species are ‘canaries in the coal mine’; they are very sensitive to extinction-inducing factors such as climate change and pollution, and are a stark warning of what is to come,” Oxford University zoologist Jonathan Bailey, who was not involved, explained in a new study in 2018. “If we lose them, other species will inevitably follow.”

Re:wild ecologist Jennifer Ludtke and her colleagues evaluated 8,011 amphibian species to update their status on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The previous evaluation was made in 2004.

Unfortunately, the situation has worsened since then.

“The number of known amphibian extinctions in the last 150 years may reach 222.” [перебувають під загрозою зникнення (можливо вимерлі)] species actually became extinct,” the researchers explain in their paper.

Harlequin frog Chiriki (Atelopus chiriquiensis) and a sharp-nosed day frog (Taudactylus acutirostris) declined rapidly in the 1990s due to the fungal disease chytridiomycosis. craugastor millomilon And Pseudoeurycea expectancyta They were last seen in the 1970s and are believed to have been exterminated. By expanding agriculture.

Disease and pollution have also caused strange deformities in some species, while other amphibians face other human threats such as poaching.

The effects of more frequent and destructive fires and reduced soil moisture currently affect five species of salamanders in the United States. Reduced rainfall in the humid tropics of Australia and Brazil is predicted to affect frog reproduction, while amphibians living on the mountain peaks of Venezuela can only climb so high to monitor climate change.

“The true impact is probably underestimated,” Ludtke and his team warn. But the information they collect can help with protection. “This study shows that amphibian hotspots in Central and East Africa raise conservation concerns on the continent,” explains Stellenbosch University biologist John Meesey.

“If the IUCN Red List had been updated in the 1970s on the same scale as today, we could have tracked a large-scale amphibian epidemic 20 years before it decimated amphibian populations,” adds Adam Sweidan, co-founder of Synchronicity Earth.

Because amphibians control insect populations, their extinction could impact our own well-being. A striking example of this is the increase in malaria following the decline of mosquito-eating frog species in South America between the 1980s and 2000s.

We may not always see it, but amphibian extinction affects us all.

“Conserving and restoring amphibians is a solution to the climate crisis because of their key role in maintaining healthy carbon-storing ecosystems,” says Nim. “As a global community, it is time to invest in the future of amphibians, the future of our planet.”