The bottom line [...] is that human actions are depleting Earth’s natural capital, putting such strain on the environment that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2008).
This section of our website provides and introductory review on the amphibian extinction crisis. We provide conservation management guidelines for professionals in land management and city planning who want to help us address this issue. The introduction provides an accessible overview of the science behind the amphibian extinctions. The section on Citizen Monitoring is also readable for any person interested in learning how to monitor amphibians. For the more scientifically inclined or advanced reader, the remaining sections are primarily being designed as a teaching resource for forestry and wildlife students enrolled at UNBC. These pages give a review and summary of the scientific literature and research that is reporing on the global amphibian extinction crisis b7 providing pdf links to the original published source (e.g. Vredenburg and Wake 2007). We give our moral rationale for wanting to conserving amphibians in our local area. This links will also direct the reader to the some of the most important international scientific reports on the state of the planets ecosystems conservation (e.g., Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Responses and strategic conservation plans Amphibian Conservation Action Plan.
The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment was commissioned by the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Anan in 2000 and has published multiple scientific assessments on the status and relation that our ecosystems have to human well-being. The reports provide a detailed summary of knowledge on the many benefits that ecosystems sustain and provide including health, economics, atmosphere, water, timber, and food supplies. Healthy ecosystems are of greater value to society than currently measured by the standard market economy and governance that hand out licence to clear ecosystems. This economic approach brings short-term wealth to the few while reducing natural wealth for the majority.
Conservation science addresses conflict between the needs of humanity and our ecosystems by identifying measures that can be implemented to sustain the well-being, health and economics of our communities and ecosystems. While this website is devoted to amphibians, we realize and hope to convey the message that amphibian conservation serves to strategically conserve many species. Through the guidance of the global Amphibian Conservation Action Plan combined with local intitiatives, such as NAMOS BC, we can improve and contribute to the health of global and local ecosystems.
The ACAP calls on all governments, corporations, civil society and the scientific community to respond (IUCN Species Survival Commission: Amphibian Conservation Action Plan 2005).
The Living Planet Report (2008) by the World Wildlife Federation shows that humanity is extracting natural resources beyond the biocapacity of the planet. There is only a limited amount of natural resource stock on the planet. Our natural resources, such as timber and food, are repleneshed annually through photosynthesis fueling ecosystems of the planet. Since the mid-80's humaninty has been extracting resources at a rate that exceeds the bioregenerative capacity of the planets ecosystems. Hence, we are extracting from reserves that were built up over billions of years before humanity started converting the natural materials into processed material goods. In the process, ecosystem services are lost and a great amount of atmospheric carbon is permanently lost to the atmosphere and oceans in the process.
Amphibian species are disappearing faster than any other living group. On a global scale, 32% of all remaining species are threatened by habitat conversion and climate change (Young et al. 2006). Such red-listed species are suffering great loss and will face extinction unless immediate conservation measures are taken. The rate of global species extinction since the mid-1980's exceeds 200X the rate measured from the fossil record (McCallum 2007). Populations contributing to significant loss in global biomass are declining at 10X this rate with the ranges of 43% of the threatened species in decline (Muths et al. 2005; Wake and Vredenburg 2008).
The most alarming realization is that these reports have yet to measure the planetary biomass of populations that are in rapid decline but not yet monitored. We can be certain, however, that declines are occurring generally, because the causes, habitat conversion and climate change, are linked to growth in the market economy. While the market economy generates employment, expands our urbanized communities and delivers goods such as roads, vehicles, electricity, appliances, fuel, it is doing so at a cost to human well-being that only measured through the wealth of ecosystems. Intact and healthy ecosystems can no longer responsibly be ploughed under roads, harvested, or simply removed to make room for new development plans as if they contain little value. In this regard, amphibians are quite possibly the best environmental and ecological indicator that we have to measure the status of our natural capitol.
NAMOS BC serves our community by assisting citizen volunteers to collect data and monitor amphibian populations in our local area. There are initiatives across the globe where people in communities are helping to monitor. For example, the North American Amphibian Monitoring Program is collecting data from volunteers across the Eastern United States. These initiatives are working to raise awareness about and to understand the global demise of amphibian ecosystems in the hope that we can repair the damage. Our organization will help you to become an effective citizen volunteer and we will post our collective results online. Amphibian monitoring is a way for you to engage in the issue while also taking part in enjoyable outdoor adventures that are a great learning excercise for the whole family. Please contact us if you would like to be trained for free to become an amphibian citizen volunteer (ecology@namos.ca).
Our organization is collaborating with provincial monitoring efforts involving citizen science volunteers. We are looking for the following information about amphibians from citizen volunteers:
1. What species of amphibian did you find?
2. What did you see - egg, tadpole, larvae, juvenille, or adult?
3. Date.
4. Coordinates and brief description of area (e.g., in forested area at the base of Foothills Blvd., Prince George).
5. Your contact information.
We need to find people who are willing to revisit a site at least twice in one season. A site is a generic term that refers to a sampling unit from the population, or a sampling unit from the area under investigation. When recording your amhibian observations, you can refer to your monitoring site as pond or marsh, for example, or as a piece of forested land that you searched for several hours. The exact dimensions of the site are not all that important, but it is important that you return to the site and search it at least twice each season and search it with the same relative degree of effort. Please contact us (ecology@namos.ca) and we will be more than pleased to help you to recieve additional training on how to monitor amphibians in your local area or backyard.
For the more keen volunteer, section 5, module 2.4 of the wetlanders keepers guide is one of the most accessible and free guides that will teach you how to conduct a highly effective and detailed amphibian inventory. This guidebook provides excellent outdoor learning activities for children. To learn more about becoming a citizen volunteer monitoring amphibians in your local area, visit the NAMOS BC monitoring information section. Alternatively, you can contact the provincial FrogWatch pages to learn more about the provincial wide efforts to monitor and conserve the amphibians of British Columbia. The Northern American Amphibian Monitoring Program is also an interesting example that illustrates the type of citizen monitoring we are interested in achieving in our local area.
The Eurpean Union interim report on The Economics of Ecosystems & Biodiversity (TEEB) identifies a great source of social and economic wealth that is being lost through the global loss of ecosystems. The conversion and rate of extinction in earths ecosystems is larger and more significant than any financial crisis human society has ever faced. This is known as the the sixth great extinction of earths history (Avise et al. 2008; Wake and Vredenburg 2008) and there is no forecast telling of a recovery any time soon. Amphibian ecosystems are more than financially valuable, it is essential to our survival that they continue to thrive.
The Ecological Society of America posts a Primer on Ecological Services that forms the logic behind our systematic conservation plans. To many, the practice of conservation biology has become equated with the notion of the Endangered Species Act or the Canadian Species at Risk Act. These laws affording species protection do not completely protect biodiversity, which includes "...genetic and ecosystem diversity, the alteration of structure, and the disruption of ecological and evolutionary processes (Collins & Crump, 2009, p. 1)". We must do more than protect species. The extinction crisis of amphibians has made some conservationists aware of the more immediate concerns dealing with the loss of biomass and ecological energy processes that exist in popluation levels of biodiversity. Local populations are dissapearing from local communities at an unsustainable and increasingly rapid rate. This happens as wetlands are continually being drained and forests are cleared asside for urban development, farmland, timber harvesting, or roads. How do we weigh in the value of what is being lost? We cannot measure what is being lost by only counting species extinctions, populations of even common species are providing enormous amounts of ecosystem services.
The loss of population level diversity is contributing to the increasing poverty of nations (Gross 2006; Turner et al. 2007). Addressing population level diversity is the most effective way to address the extinction crisis because it is more directly tied to the management and consideration for local ecosystem services that people can relate to (Wood and Gross, 2008). Reading through the various sections on this website you will learn how amphibians regulate many essential and valuable services such as cycling nutrients to keep our forests productive. Amphibians also offer opportunities in the medical field, not only through for pharmaceuticals (e.g. VanCompernolle et al. 2005), but because they also serve as environmental regulators of healthy green space (Maller et al., 2005; Mitchell and Popham, 2008). Active green spaces that are within walking distance in our communities provide many immediate and measurable health benefits for communities. Amphibians are active ingredients in such urban green spaces.
Beyond the utilitarian values, there are also cultural values that fall under the heading of ecological services. The Carrier Sekani peoples inhabiting the Central Interior of BC and have a traditional connection to amphibians through the frog clans. The frog clan forms part of a matrilineal governance system in the Carrier Sekani and is identified by the frog crest. There are other cultural connections to amphibians that are easily missed or overlooked in the environmental assessment for development process. Naturalists, scientists, and children catching frogs and tadpoles are all examples where stong cultural links to the amphibians can be found and all are valued. Amphibians are deeply rooted into the culture and networked into the ecology of Central Interior communities. NAMOS BC has its origins at UNBC, Canada’s GreenTM University. Each year the Lheidli T’enneh band chief inaugurates convocation by striking a ceremonial staff against a sound block marking the beginning of graduand ceremonies. A frog is carved into the staff and adorns the traditional clothing of frog clan elders. Frog paintings of First Nations design are proudly displayed throughout the University campus. The forested park, endowment, and traditional lands adjacent to UNBC abound with amphibians that migrate onto campus roads, often being hit by traffic. NAMOS BC educates and employs students enrolled in biology, environmental planning, and natural resource management to understand amphibians inhabiting these lands and to implement plans for their survivability. Children in UNBC daycare visit amphibian ponds that are adjacent to the campus playground, where they see eggs in ditches littered with garbage, but they all share in the excitement of jumping frogs, toads, and squirming salamanders.
The conservation plans of NAMOS BC direct us to involve local community efforts, so that everyone has an opportunity to invest in the ecological services provided by the natural capital of amphibian populations. This approach not only addresses the global extinction crisis, but it also addresses a host of issues, such as climate change, and by involving the community it is democratic. To assist with the understanding of why it is important to conserve amphibians, we communicate our plan through sound economic principles that identify a gross mis-measure of ecological services in our global markets by as much as US$18 trillion per year (Costanza et al., 1997). Hence, conservation science is a fiscally responsible way to manage our natural resources, and is an investment in natural capital that sustains our local economies while at the same time making our communities beautiful places to live. Getting community involved in local efforts to protect wetland habitat, is not as abstract a concept as the colorful species listings that are reactionary, rather than preventative meausures. If we only look at endangered or listed species, we are loosing on the services that are provided to us directly by local and thriving ecosystems.
Charting a course that reverses the amphibian extinction crisis can teach us how to change our relationship with nature. NAMOS BC recognizes that there are other creatures and values to protect in natural areas that amphibians might not cover, but amphibians are important. A purpose of NAMOS BC, however, is to engage the community and to use amphibian ecology as an entry for people to rediscover the natural world. We educate on the many services that the worlds ecosystems sustain for our well being and survival. Our organization's mission is values the ecological services provided by amphibians and other ecologically linked species (Costanza et al. 1997; Losey and Vaughan 2006)
The mountain pine beetle epidemic has raised a public awareness in British Columbia and elsewhere about the link between climate change, forest ecology, and the economy. There is a sea of dead pine trees in the wake of of the mountain pine beetle epidemic in the Central Interior of BC. This severity of this outbreak is due to climate change and it has forever changed the ecology of our forests. Climate change introduces significant challenges to our forest economy that needs the support and services of amphibian ecology. This section looks and the links between climage change, forestry, and amphibians of the Central Interior.
The pine beetle epidemic has converted our forests from a carbon sink to a carbon source, this means that our forests will release 270 megatonnes (Mt) of carbon between the year 2000 and 2020! Dead and decaying forests release carbon into the atmosphere because the damaged ecosystem can no longer do the work that otherwise stores carbon in the living and decaying tissues of trees, insects, amphibians, and other creatures of the forest. This is another example of an important ecosystem service. Amphibians provide an ecosystem service to the benefit of our society by regulating soil insect and bug ecosystems that work, retain and store carbon. If society is going to adapt to the effects climate change, the link between atmospheric carbon emissions, ecosystem services, and the economy is a necessary adapatation (Harford, 2008). The pine beetle epidemic demonstrates the significant relationship between forests, amphibians, insects, the economy and climate change that we can not afford to ignore (Davic & Welsh, 2004; Kurz et al., 2008). Provincial management guidelines for forestry practices in the Central Interior of BC do not specifically manage for amphibian populations in this context. Amphibians are a resource than can nurture productive forests for our communities and industry. In an effort to address these issues in forestry, the president of NAMOS BC has taught UNBC forestry and biology students since 2004 on the ecology and management of amphibians in forestry (Rea & Hodder, 2007).
Size restrictions for wetland and wetland riparian management, in the Forest and Range Practices Act of BC, are too large to provide sufficient protections for amphibian biodiversity. Amphibians have unique ecosystem requirements that is missed under the provincial guidelines for wetlands, wetland riparian and terrestrial areas where the ecology of amphibians is most productive (Semlitsh and Bodie 1998; Ferguson 1999). Integrated Pest Management (IPM) Guidelines require only a 10m pesticide free zone around wetlands (>0.25 ha) allowing over spray in non-fish bearing temporary freestanding water bodies. Pesticide spraying is costly. These costs are accounted for in terms of the damage that overspray and seepage does to the ecosystem and because it is a disengenious method that runs contrary to management practices seeking to nurture productive and healthy ecosystems (Rohr Lab; Rohr et al. 2008).
There are few remaining years, if any, to bring the regenerative biocapacity of the planet back to sustainable levels. NAMOS BC is collaborating with a global network of organizations, such as the US Amphibian Research Monitoring Initiative (ARMI), and adopting systematic conservation plans that are supported by our understanding of ecological services as they relate to local communities. Like fish and other wildlife, amphibians must also be afforded protections to manage the ecological systems that sustain our natural resources. Public perception is important. Often it is the beauty of nature or economic benefits through ecotourism that gathers community interest (e.g. Save our Rivers Society). From an aesthetic stance, amphibians do not always live in the most beautiful places on earth, yet they deserve effective protection measures for the many benefits they bring to society.
The biomass of amphibians in the Central Interior likely surpasses that of birds and mammals as it does in other places. As bioturbators, they enhance soils with predatory links to invertebrate ecology and stabilize the retention of nutrients, such as nitrogen and carbon (Davic and Welsh 2004).Types of ecosystem services that amphibians supply are numerous, but in forestry their importance relates to nutrient cycling within soils and how this links to productivity and yield. Strategic management of amphibians effectively and synergistically umbrellas keystone ecological functions in aquatic, riparian and terrestrial lands, which makes amphibian population management a highly effective tool for ecosystem conservation and management. The reason that amphibians link so importantly to ecosystems of the Central Interior is because: a) they hold a significant proportion of vertebrate biomass, and b) no other vertebrate predator transends the aquatic to terrestrial cline, which critically relates to energy and nutrient transfer.
Forest roads and cleared land increase mortality and alter the behaviours of amphibians. Management techniques to address amphibians in local cut-block stands require proper delineation and management wetlands that are appropriately designed for amphibians (e.g. Bunnell and Dupuis 1993). Buffer zones around breeding ponds must be sufficient for terrestrial ecology of amphibian life, including migration, feeding, and dispersal (Richardson 1997; Maxcy and Richardson 2000; Semlisch and Bodie 2003). Fire and coarse woody debris are also important features of the landscape that require management within forestry practices (Chazal and Niewiarowski 1998; Bunnell et al. 2002; Pilliod et al. 2003).
Amphibians are linked to the issue of climate change because it is a driving cause of extinctions (Pounds et al., 2006) and because they regulate the largest flux and reservoirs of terrestrical carbon in our forest soils (Davic and Welsh, 2004). A view of the global carbon cycle shows an annual flux of 7.2 billion tonnes of carbon a year from fossil fuel and cement emissions. In comparison, it is roughly estimated that salamanders alone regulate 10 billion tonnes of carbon annually (Wyman, 1998)!
Biodiversity is the variety of life and its processes. It includes the variety of living organisms, the genetic differences among them, the communities and ecosystems in which they occur, and the ecological and evolutionary processes that keep them functioning, yet ever changing and adapting (Noss and Cooperrider in Collins & Crump, 2009).
We attribue special emphasis to this section, because habitat loss through urbanization is the largest threat to amphibians and other species (see IUCN Major Threats List; Sodhi et al., 2008). While few in the public are aware of the changing state of nature, we are in the midst of a sixth great extinction period (Wake & Vredenburg, 2008) and seventy percent of biologists believe that this great loss of biodiversity threatens human existence in the next century (American Museum of Natural History). Despite the serious nature of the crisis and a concerted attempt by conservation biologists to highlight the importance of this issue (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, there is little concern or awareness about the biodiversity crisis among votors (e.g., Beardsley, 2009) and for those who are aware may not know how to address the problem. Biodiversity is more than species richness and extinction, biodiversity also includes the hundreds of thousands of local populations that dissapear each and every day (Hugues et al., 1997). NAMOS BC is committed to the conservation of amphibian biodiversity by finding ways to improve land development in the Central Interior of BC. Ultimately, we need the political will, awareness, and voices of concern being heard from among the voting public about the plight of biodiversity in our local area.
These pages offer some of our solutions to address the global extinction crisis by conserving amphibian ecosystems and involving people in the process. Amphibians once lived in the places where we have built roads, buildings, shopping centers, and housing units. Amphibian conservation requires long-term solutions to the development and engineering of ecological friendly communities, business, organizations and roads. Roads, in particular, are having a major impact on the global biomass of amphibians. Beyond the immediate effect of mortality by being hit (e.g., (Ashley & Robinson, 1996) roads fragment populations affecting the behaviour and survivability of populations in areas well beyond the edge of the pavement Eigenbrod et al. 2008; Glista et al. 2008). Road salts, traffic noise, traffic densisity, forestry roads, lights, and the physical disturbance of land development negatively impact amphibians and require solutions. Some solutions in the design of amphibian road tunnels allow for the migration and crossings for amphibians under roads. The global amphibian extinction crisis is so unique to our times, that city planning across the globe must include measures that effectively conserves biodiversity to revese the extinction trend. We need citizens to become more involved in voicing their concerns about the loss of biodiversity from our local parks and surrounding area. NAMOS BC is here to provide information about amphibian conservation and to assist interested citizens who would like to help us address this pressing issue.
Preventing the loss of local populations from habitat loss, such as that incurred by local development plans that do not properly factor in the ecological services which they are clearing (e.g. University Heights Neighborhood Plan - UHNP). Ecological city planning requires knowledge about the components of biodiversity that are present in an area prior to its development. This allows for the proper engineering and design around existing wetlands and places where amphibians go in the upland forests. City planners have the option of working with ecologists and geographical spatial analysts to implement and discover solutions to the problems that cause losses of local and existing populations. Surprising as it may sound, preventing the destruction of a local pond to maintain the presence of amphibian wetland ecology in our communities is an effective way to address the global extinction crisis. As important as wetlands are, land development must also manage for the upland linkages by providing sufficient connectivity with forest cover (Olson et al. 2007). Roads have long-term and negative impacts on amphibians through all stages of their development, from construction, to completion and onto daily use by unaware vehicles (Andrews and Jochimsen 2007). The fragmentation of the amphibians habitat puts amphibians in harms way and increases mortality rates (a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;318/5857/1775" target="_Blank">Becker et al., 2007). By coordinating citizens in local monitoring coupled with our ecolgical studies, NAMOS BC is positioned to contribute to a better understanding of amphibian populations and their habitats. NAMOS BC can offer counsel on development plans to manage for and maintain wetland ecosystems and the services they provide to the well-being of our communities. If you are a city planner or involved in forestry roads and would like to learn more about conserving amphibian ecosystems in your engineering designs and plans, please contact us (ecology@namos.ca) and we can provide you with some of the resources that have been successfully applied in other parts of the province.
By far [habitat fragmentation] is bigger than climate change. While the serious effects from climate change are 30 years away, there’s nothing left to save then if we don’t deal with fragmentation. And the spearhead of fragmentation are roads. (Dr. Michael Soule, retired biologist and founder of the Society for Conservation Biology)
Roads have a negative effect on wildlife and are particularly damaging to amphibians populations (Puky, 2005; Eigenbrod et al., 2009; Fahrig, 2009). Traffic noise, de-icing agents, and the physical onslaught of vehicles squishing amphibians is having a devastating effect on populations worldlide. There are ways to mitigate such effects when designing community plans and roadways by installing road crossing structures to facilitate crossing (Lesbarreres, 2004; Woltz et al., 2008). Roads are part of a more general problem in land development. The process is called "habitat split" and it is "...defined as human-induced disconnection between habitats used by different life history stages of a species–which forces forest–associated amphibians with aquatic larvae to make risky breeding migrations between suitable aquatic and terrestrial habitats (Becker et al., 2007)"
We used the University Heights Neighborhood Plan as an example, because this is a recent and significant community development that will negatively affect the amphibian populations in one of NAMOS BC's long-term monitoring sites in forested lands adjacent to the University of Northern British Columbia. The area being developed is also adjacent to traditional lands of the Lheidli T'enneh (cultural values), adjacent to Canada's Green University (educational/scientific values), and contains a large population of amphibians (ecolgical values). A visit to the developed area shows once productive land and soils that are indiscrimantely bulldozing key amphibian habitats, ploughing existing wetlands, and redirecting these intoto ditches where debris and forms of pollution will accumulate. The water now running in the ditches along sections where the University Heights has already been developed shows contaminants forming a colorful rainbow crust on top of the water. The area is also devoid of amphibians, and lacking the previous abundance of aquatic and riparian life that once thrived in these lands. It would be more economically affordable and ecologically responsible for these development plans to properly assess the ecosystems, engineer solutions, and plan for ways to maintain the existing components of biodiversity into our new communities. While an environmental assessment and wildlife survey was completed in the University Heights Neighborhood Plan, they were done hastily and are incomplete. We need citizens to help us collect data on on amphibian populations in surrounding areas so that we can generate awareness about their existence and plight.
Communities can work together to prevent further loss of local amphibian populations that surround our communities. Conservation measures that address amphibians will umbrella much of the ecology because they are part of a keystone guild that prey upon invertebrates and stir nutrients through aquatic, riparian, and forested land. Salamanders are dominant predators in most forest stands with their biomass alone exceeding that of birds, small mammals, and other mammals (Davic and Welsh 2004). Not only do amphibians move about locally, there was a mass migration after the last glacial retreat (~14,000 years ago) stemming from the mountain ranges of Montana, Idaho, and Washington through the mountain valleys of British Columbia and into Alaska. There is a continuous and unbroken chain of gene flow that connect these populations that moved millimeter by millimeter across the aerial view of our province.
Pollution and disease are and linked environmental and ecological factors that are jointly having a negative impact on the physiology and survivability of amphibians. Pesticides that are used and found in British Colubmia's water supply, such as Atrazine, are known to be potent endocrine disruptors that chemically castrates and feminizes frogs at low concentrations (Hayes et al., 2002). NAMOS BC is digitally recording images of captured amphibians, looking at the health of individuals, and taking body measurements as we document physiological abnormalities and other demographic variables that will help us to monitor the populations. Some of the most commonly used pesticides in Canada are lethal to amphibians or make them more susceptable to parasites and disease (e.g., Rohr et al., 2008). NAMOS BC is collaboratively involved in research projects investigating disease and the ecotoxicology of herbicides.
The USGS National Wildlife Health Center and the North American Reporting Center for Amphibian Malformations (NARCAM) are examples of the national efforts working to understand the relationship between amphibian malformations, pollution, and disease. Identifying malformations requires knowledge about the anatomy of a healthy amphibian versus a malformed amphibian. For example, the opening image to this section shows malformed toes in a wood frog. Other images in this section show malformations we have identified locally in salamanders and toads. The toad shows a lesion in the abdomal area. This individual was captured on July 6, 2009 and was also shedding its skin. Another larger toad was also caught and was loosing its skin. These malformations and ailments are difficult to see unless you capture, handle and view the animal with a macro lens armed digital camera or a sharp eye. These ailments are also require training to properly identify and to diagnose the cause. For example, there are two classes of abnormal developments in amphibians including deformities and malformations. Deformities are the results of physical blunt trauma such as insect bites or parasitic cysts. Malformations are developmental, genetic or environmentally caused teratogenic growth, including the feminization of frogs and missing eyes resulting from pollution such as agricultural runoff including nitrogen & pesticides (Collins & Crump, 2009). Without a permit, handling of animals is listed as an offense in the Wildlife Act of British Columbia. NAMOS BC has legal provincial permits and Animal Care Approval to monitor amphibians for diseases or malformations. Hence, we need to consider and incorporate these factors when designing citizen monitoring programs. We can help people obtain the necessary permits if you interested in reporting on amphibian malformations in your local area or you can contact us (ecology@namos.ca) and we will help you to obtain your permits to monitor and then report on this kind of data.
There is a direct and significant relationship between the second most commonly used pesticide in the United States, Atrazine, disease, and malformations in amphibians (Rohr et al., 2008). Atrazine is also used in Canada and is contaminates our water supply (Health Canada). The adjacent images show examples of our digital tracking method for identifying and then reporting on malformations. NAMOS BC has several operating grants and one focuses on the ecotoxicoligy of herbicide use on amphibian pouplations. Herbicides are used frequently as a means of forest silvilcultural brush control in our province, but the full impact and ecological effect of distributing these chemicals into the environment is not known. In upcoming seasons and years we will be providing more information on this component of our monitoring and research.
A deadly chytrid fungus is also spreading among amphibian populations of the world and has contributed to the extinction of up to 200 species of frogs (Skerratt et al., 2007). This disease has spread globally and has even found its way into Prince George. There is a link between climate change having an effect on the subsequent behaviour and physiology of amphibians and the spread of the disease (Pounds et al., 2006). However, the chytrid fungus is not the only disease to spread and cause declines in amphibians. Climate change is reducing water levels and increases the level of UV exposure to developing embryos. These conditions have been favorable to the spread of a pathogenic oomycete, Saprolegnia ferax, which is causing reductions in frogs and toads (Kiesecker et al., 2001). Examples of other lessions and limb malformations can be seen in the following guide that was developed by the USGS and NARCAM.
There are many other chemicals being released on a daily basis that are likely to cause physiological harm to amphibians. Amphibians commonly breed in roadside ditches in urban areas where our trash and plastics accumulate. Plastics break down and then release many of their components that leak into our water supply (Talsness et al., 2009) and into wildlife (Thompson et al., 2009); the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society recently published a theme issue on Plastics, the environment and human health. Although we may not be able to link direct effects of each chemical contaminant on the biology of amphibians, the emerging branch of Green chemistry offers safer policies that consider the full life cycle of substances in an effort to ensure that the components they break down into are ecologically and environmentally innocuous and/or recoverable. Green chemistry requires that the producers demonstrate safety of products in ecosystems and the environment prior to sale and distribution. It is important that we work to keep urban wetlands free of waste, which is more than unsightly - the chemical contaminants are unhealthy. Light pollution is another damaging form of urban pollution that is causing harm to amphibian populations (Longcore and Rich, 2004).
The overarching goal of the ecological research conducted by NAMOS BC is to measure the value and extent of ecological services that amphibians supply to communties of the Central Interior of BC. Our organization is following the lead of other national and international scientific organizations that are working together to mobilize citizens, to conserve, to monitor, and to rehabilitate the great loss of amphibian biodiversity on this planet. The following sections give brief overview of our research that is ongoing through the hiring and supervision of UNBC student research assistantships. The above set of images shows the type of digital photo records that we are using to capture and catalogue demographic and ecological data. More details can be learned by accessing a copy of our 2008 year end report.
NAMOS BC is committed to long-term monitoring of amphibian populations and our research methods reflect long-term planning. The United States Geological Survey and Amphibian Research Monitoring Initiative has identifed species presence as the most useful pieces of data to collect. NAMOS BC is heading up a similar effort in the Central Interior of BC. To help organize and mobilize monitoring efforts in our local region, we are actively researching and collecting ecological data on amphibian populations. Distribution patterns of long-toed salamanders, western-toads, wood and spotted frogs are being mapped in the Aleza Lake Research Forest, the John Prince Research Forest and forested lands adjacent to UNBC. The type of information we are collecting provides valuable scientific information that can be used to improve our land management practices in such a way that amphibian populations can co-exist with a forestry based resource economy. Forestry is an important resource and the utility of forest products is expanding into other technological ventures such as bioenergy (e.g., UNBC Green Initiatives). There is concern, however, that these new ventures for alternative sources of energy (e.g., Eggers et al., 2008) could hasten the ecological extinction crisis rather than reducing the impact of climate change. Conservation of nature is the most effective strategy that government and society can do to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Our research null-hypothesis is that there is a single population in each study area having uniform dispersal and migration networks running through a heterogeneous patchwork of wetland types and terrestrial ecosystems. Our study design tests for isolated breeding patches versus random mating among sites by measuring the extent of gene flow and genetic structure from captured individuals. Since environmental and life history attributes affect dispersal and migration we also compare skin coloration, age group and gender among habitat types. Conservation strategies mitigating the effects of habitat fragmentation and environmental degradation are assisted by studies that provide information on ecological and genetic traits with respect to the nature and extent of population size and structure over time. This study contributes to a growing network of local initiatives that are pooling data to monitor and address global rates of amphibian decline by obtaining estimates of the proportion of areas occupied by amphibian species (see USGS-ARMI).
For the more curious and advanced reader, the next section provides details on the science of our ecological studies and amphibian metapopulation ecology.
There is a natural rhythm of ecosystem dynamics where long-term trends and landscape monitoring shows that most amphibian breeding ponds are part of a larger complex, some of which can become vacant or occupied at different times. This rhythm is somewhat paralleled by climate change, seasonal water level fluctuations, and ephemeral drying periods has direct bearing on population demographics and monitoring for amphibian population declines (Petranka et al., 2004).
There are two general approaches that have been used to monitor for amphibian declines. Most monitoring approaches require site intensive surveys that designed to detect trends in population size over time (Smith & Petranka, 2000). Monitoring for change in population dynamics over time is achieved through mark-recapture methods and using molecular markers to estimate parameters such as migration, gene flow and effective population size (c.f., Hanski & Gaggiotti, 2004). Researchers affiliated with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative (ARMI) have developed new less-intensive monitoring techniques that focus on the range of a species relative to abundance through measures of proportion of area (POA) occupied (Mackenzie, et al., 2006). We adopt a combination of these research methods at different spatial scales covering ponds and terrestrial lands.
Gill (1978) hypothesized that juveniles disperse “…from ponds according to a logarithmic diffusion function of distance.” (p. 163). Gamble et al. (2006) postulated that amphibians migrate into the uplands because the squared increase in amount of area beyond a breeding wetland could serve to counteract density resource competition surrounding a breeding wetland site. Semlistch (2008) reviews the empirical evidence and posits that juvenile dispersal into a new breeding site occurs over several consecutive seasons allowing time for growth and maturation. It was furthermore postulated that the location of new ponds were colonized by random dispersal of juveniles moving at perpendicular angles away from the waters edge.
The primary null-hypothesis of our ecological research is that there is a single population in each of the study sites that are not genetically structured into isolated breeding patches among wetlands. In this model, random or uniform dispersal defines the migration networks that run through a heterogeneous patchwork of terrestrial ecosystems. These networks interconnect the range, distribution and spread of genes among breeding adults and juveniles. There is also no effective change in population size regulated by the yearly replacement of breeding adults into each site, equal migration and exchange rates among sites, and the exchange of individuals among sites are determined by the spatial intersection of terrestrial ranges among breeding wetlands. Such an unstructured breeding pattern would serve to homogenize the population and counteract the evolution of local scale habitat associations providing evidence for adaptive phenotypic variation.
The null-unstructured population model suggests there is yearly turnover and exchange of breeding adults at each established breeding site and the exchange of individuals (juveniles & adults) among sites is determined by the spatial intersection of terrestrial ranges shared among breeding wetlands. In this unstructured model, terrestrial habitat associations among juveniles, adults, or phenotypic variants do not occur.
Alternatively, the pattern is consistent with spatially structured metapopulations. Structured metapopulations have spatially isolated and temporarily unstable breeding patches that are interlinked by migration within patches and limited dispersal restricting gene flow among patches.
The adjcent sketch illustrates the (a) null-hypothesis versus (b) the alternative metapopulation structure. Wetlands are in blue, dark blue ponds are source ponds, light-blue ponds are sinks. Terrestrial lands are different shades of green representing heterogeneity. In the unstructured model (a) individuals migrate and disperse among sites unhindered by variation in the terrestrial matrix and the location of the source ponds is independent of the upland characteristics; such as the pond in the rectangular clear-cut shown in light green. Orange arrows represent dispersal pathways. In the structured metapopulation model (b) there is a seasonal exodus of juveniles from source populations (black arrows) that migrate and disperse through, but not among upland terrestrial patches. Moreover, the location of source ponds (dark blue) are also a function of the quality of the upland terrestrial matrix as well as the characteristics of the wetland.
The composition and structure of the upland habitat matrix, such as coarse woody debris, moisture regime, slope, prey distributions and the ecological context influences and limits population size & density, abundance, migration routes, proportion of area occupied and metapopulation structure. It is often assumed that amphibians form metapopulations because of their biology. That adult salamanders exhibit strong fidelity to their breeding ponds of origin with dispersal rates among ponds largely regulated by migrating juveniles is one of the key reasons given for metapoplations in amphibians (Smith & Green, 2005).