Editor's Summary
12 January 2006
Frogs can't stand the heat
The Monteverde harlequin frog became a cause célèbre in the debate on global warming and biodiversity when it, together with the golden toad, disappeared from Costa Rican forests in the 1980s. Some claimed global warming as the cause; others that deforestation had damaged the habitat. A new analysis that links the extinction of these and many other amphibians endemic to the American tropics to changes in sea surface and air temperatures may prove conclusive in this round of the debate. The probable agent of the amphibians' demise has been identified too: the warming trend has benefited a fungal pathogen called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, the cause of chytridiomycosis, and tipped the balance against survival of its hosts.
News and Views: Extinctions: A message from the frogs
The harlequin frogs of tropical America are at the sharp end of climate change. About two-thirds of their species have died out, and altered patterns of infection because of changes in temperature seem to be the cause.
Andrew R. Blaustein and Andy Dobson
doi:10.1038/439143a
Article: Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global warming
J. Alan Pounds, Martín R. Bustamante, Luis A. Coloma, Jamie A. Consuegra, Michael P. L. Fogden, Pru N. Foster, Enrique La Marca, Karen L. Masters, Andrés Merino-Viteri, Robert Puschendorf, Santiago R. Ron, G. Arturo Sánchez-Azofeifa, Christopher J. Still and Bruce E. Young
doi:10.1038/nature04246
Abstract | Full Text | PDF (388K) | Supplementary information
