The recent decline of a New Zealand endemic: how and why did populations of Archey's frog Leiopelma archeyi crash over 1996–2001?
By B. Bell, S. Carver, N. Mitchell, Shirley Pledger. 2004
124 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Abstract Dramatic changes have been documented in New Zealand's vertebrate faunas since human settlement, involving major declines and extinctions, but over recent years few species have declined in numbers so rapidly as the terrestrial Archey's frog Leiopelma archeyi (Anura: Leiopelmatidae). Long-term monitoring over more than 20 years revealed a major population reduction of the species over 1996–2001 and L. archeyi is now classified as Nationally Critical under the New Zealand threat classification system. The decline progressed northwards in the Coromandel ranges, and mostly larger (female) frogs survived. On a 100 m2 study plot at Tapu Ridge, annual population estimates averaged 433 frogs (SE ±32) over 1984–1994, declining by 88% to average 53 frogs (SE ±8) over 1996–2002. A mean annual survival rate of 82% for most years declined to 33% over 1994–1997. There is mounting evidence to suggest that disease is the major agent of decline, supported by (1) the rapidity and severity of decline, (2) the progressive (south to north) nature of decline, and (3) finding frogs with chytriodiomycosis from Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis at the time of decline. Surprisingly, sympatric populations of the semi-aquatic Leiopelma hochstetteri have not declined dramatically, nor has a western population of L. archeyi at Whareorino, despite chytridiomycosis occurring in some frogs there. Sustaining and restoring populations of L. archeyi in New Zealand raises major challenges for conservation management.
Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Parasitology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/17209e5259359ab22a9e61860fe3e5c2ea8580fc
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In Global and Planetary Change
In Nature and Landscape Conservation
Citations in the corpus
- Spread of Chytridiomycosis Has Caused the Rapid Global Decline and Extinction of Frogs (2007, methodology): “, 2006) to sites with similar patterns of decline (Bell et al., 2004; La Marca et al., 2005; Scherer et al., 2005) and using the increasing knowledge of the biology of Bd, we show that chytridiomycosis is the only explanation, for which supporting evidence is available, for these global ‘‘enigmatic’”
- Predicting the Distribution of the Amphibian Pathogen Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis in the New World 1 (2005, background): “Species Country: State (or Province), Locality Source Gastrotheca pseustes, Telmatobius niger Ecuador: Azuay, Las Tres Cruces Merino-Viteri (2001) Hyalinobatrachium sp. Ecuador: Morona Santiago, 6.6 km N Limon road to Macas Merino-Viteri and Coloma (pers. comm.) Telmatobius niger Ecuador: Azuay, 10 ”