A Natural History of Amphibians

By R. C. Stebbins, Nathan W. Cohen. 2021

704 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This is a book for all readers who want to learn about amphibians, the animal group that includes frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians. It draws on many years of classroom teaching, laboratory experience, and field observation by the authors. The authors explore some of nature's most interesting creatures, interspersing their own observations throughout the book. The book can serve as a textbook for students and independent learners, as an overview of the field for professional scientists and land managers, and as an introduction for general readers. The class Amphibia contains more than 4500 known living species. New species are being discovered so rapidly that the number may grow to more than 5000 during our lifetimes. However, their numbers are being rapidly diminished around the globe, largely due to the encroachment of humans on amphibian habitats and from growing human-caused environmental pollution, discussed at length in the final chapter. The authors focus our attention on the "natural history" of amphibians world-wide and emphasize their interactions with their environments over time: where they live; how they reproduce; how they have been affected by evolutionary processes; what factors will determine their destinies over time.

Subfields: Ecology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/e3e2043a24ee0005c59b462845ba917c2d80a752

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Citations in the corpus

Diet of the South American frog Leptodactylus ocellatus (Anura, Leptodactylidae) in Uruguay (2004, background): “The pivotal role of amphibians in aquatic communities was pointed out by several authors (DUELLMAN & TRUEB, 1994; STEBBINS & COHEN, 1995).”
The ecology of extinction: population fluctuation and decline in amphibians (2003, background): “Amphibians exhibit a great range of dispersing abilities (Marsh and Trenham, 2001) and demographic characteristics (Stebbins and Cohen, 1995).”
Effects of habitat loss and fragmentation on amphibians: A review and prospectus (2006, background): “Amphibians exhibit a great range of habitat requirements and dispersal abilities (Stebbins and Cohen, 1995).”
Amphibian colonization and use of ponds created for trial mitigation of wetland loss (2001, background): “Concern has increased about declines and disappearances of amphibian populations worldwide, with habitat destruction and modification being a primary cause (Wake and Morowitz 1990, Stebbins and Cohen 1995, Alford and Richards 1999).”
Non‐Native Fish Introductions and the Decline of the Mountain Yellow‐Legged Frog from within Protected Areas (2000, background): “Other researchers have suggested that larger-scale effects may instead be responsible (Stebbins & Cohen 1995; Drost & Fellers 1996), such as those resulting from increasing UV-B radiation (Blaustein et al. 1994; Anzalone et al. 1998) or environmental contaminants transported from California’s…”
Amphibian Distributions in a Landscape of Forests and Agriculture: an Examination of Landscape Composition and Conf iguration (2002, background): “…because they are small and slow moving (Stebbins & Cohen 1995), have limited dispersal capabilities (Sinsch 1990) and small home ranges (Stebbins & Cohen 1995), and are tied to moist microclimates because of their highly permeable skin that must remain cool and moist for efficient…”
From Europe to Africa and vice versa: evidence for multiple intercontinental dispersal in ribbed salamanders (Genus Pleurodeles) (2004, background): “Like all amphibians, newts of the genus Pleurodeles (Urodela, Salamandridae) do not tolerate salt water (Stebbins & Cohen, 1995), thus they are thought to disperse only via land bridges.”
AGRICULTURAL PONDS SUPPORT AMPHIBIAN POPULATIONS (2004, background): “This range of distances corresponds to home range and movement distances for many amphibian species (Stebbins and Cohen 1995, Baker and Halliday 1999); other landscape studies of amphibian habitat have used this range of distances (Vos and Stumpel 1995, Knutson et al. 1999, 2000, Lehtinen et al.…”
Declines of the California red-legged frog: climate (2001, background): “When we ran the reduced April 2001 473RED-LEGGED FROG DECLINES four-variable logistic regression model on these data sets, all coefficients remained significant.”
DECLINING DOWNWIND: AMPHIBIAN POPULATION DECLINES IN CALIFORNIA AND HISTORICAL PESTICIDE USE (2004, background): “Finally, although pesticides have long been suggested as a possible cause of amphibian declines (Carey and Bryant 1995, Stebbins and Cohen 1995, Drost and Fellers 1996, Lips 1998), there have been few toxicological studies on declines.”
Global amphibian declines: sorting the hypotheses (2003, neutral): “In the early 1900s, R. muscosa was common and widespread above 1500 m in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California and Nevada (U.S.A.).”
Paradox, presumption and pitfalls in conservation biology: The importance of habitat change for amphibians and reptiles. (2007, background): “…meaningful functional groups or guilds, despite the fact that measures of body size, reproductive mode, microhabitat association or taxonomic family are all useful proxies of ecological function, and can easily be identified for many assemblages (Stebbins and Cohen, 1995; Vitt and Pianka, 2003).”
IDENTIFYING THE MINIMAL DEMOGRAPHIC UNIT FOR MONITORING POND-BREEDING AMPHIBIANS (2004, background): “Amphibians are undergoing a global decline (e.g., Stebbins and Cohen 1995, Beebee 1996, Drost and Fellers 1996, Sarkar 1996, Green 1997, Houlahan et al. 2000, Davidson et al. 2002).”
Population Decline of the Jambato Toad Atelopus ignescens (Anura: Bufonidae) in the Andes of Ecuador (2003, background): “Population declines in amphibians in Ecuador have been reported since the early 1990s (Vial and Sailor, 1993; Coloma, 1995, 1996, 2002; Stebbins and Cohen, 1995; Lötters, 1996; Coloma et al., 2000).”