I’m leading the Laboratory of Animal Behaviour and Conservation at Nanjing Forestry University, where we focus on a broad range of species. Projects were so far focused on the behavioural ecology and conservation of amphibian species in East Asia, but this is changing and you are welcome to inquire, maintaining a focus on North East Asia.
New publication in BioInvasions Records: “Record of invasive Rana huanrenensis and Pelophylax nigromaculatus on Ulleung Island, Republic of Korea”. A paper led by Yoonhyuk Bae.
Invasive species have a significant negative impact on the environment where they have been introduced, and amphibians are among some of worse invasive species. All known amphibian introductions are linked to human activities, generally in relation with pest control or food provisioning.
This is the case of all amphibians on Ulleung Island, Republic of Korea, which were originally and mistakenly thought to be “reintroduced” after extirpation, or introduced for unrealised purposes such as food provisioning and pest-control. We conducted call and visual encounter surveys in all valleys of Ulleung Island, Republic of Korea, in April and May 2021 to detect the presence of amphibian species. The call surveys and subsequent call analyses revealed the presence of two geographically independent populations of Pelophylax nigromaculatus, and encounter surveys resulted in the sampling of Rana tadpoles identified as Rana huanrenensis with molecular tools. These results highlight the presence of these two species at low density on this island, but do not provide data on the impact of their presence.
Introduction routes of Pelophylax nigromaculatus and Rana huanrenensis to Ulleung Island.
We recently published a short note reporting on an interspecific amplexus between Polypedates leucomystax and Rhacophorus reinwardtii with Rahayu Oktaviani, and it resulted in this cute cartoon by the incredibly talented @shirohyde!
interspecific amplexus between Polypedates leucomystax and Rhacophorus reinwardtii – all credits go to the incredibly talented @shirohyde!
We are happy to share some updates from the people in our lab working in the Himalayas, India. This week we organised an amphibian conservation talk in Mukteshwar hill town to encourage local youths and public to protect the amphibians of Himalayas. Due to COVID-19 restriction, many people couldn’t join the talk but we are glad that some passionate young nature guides of the ‘Nature in Mukteshwar’ group made it to the event. Participants were very much interested and happy to learn about frogs of their region. We believe it takes positive intent and some efforts to educate people in the right direction and with consistency locals can pick up and get well on knowledge of their own local biodiversity. Without participation of local communities, no conservation program is successful. A big thanks to Ram and Ghazala for arranging everything! This program was organised under a grant received from Rufford Foundation, United Kingdom. We hope our work in the Himalayas will ignite many young minds to start thinking to save amphibians of the Himalayas!
Participants of the workshop
Vishal Kumar Prasad giving a talkThe team supporting Vishal Kumar Prasad’s projectLandscape of Mukteshwar
作为对比，我们使用了物种丰富度和演化独特且濒危的物种评分指标（Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered ,EDGE）绘制了两栖动物生物多样性图谱并对其进行了排序。结果显示，我们的方法预测了两栖动物保护的关键区域，而单纯基于物种丰富度或EDGE评分指标时并不明显。
Relative conservation priority scores for amphibians using species richness (a), EDGE score proxy (b), and the integrative approach (c). We calculated priority scores for each approach by summing the scores (or number) of species overlapping each grid cell. The spatial distribution of high-scoring pixels differed considerably among the three approaches, with the integrative and EDGE score proxy approaches suggesting higher conservation priorities in the Paleotropics than the species richness approach
Conservation priority scores for each pixel relative to other pixels within the same biome, for the species richness (a), EDGE score proxy (b), and integrative scoring approach (c). We calculated global-scale priority scores for each approach by summing the scores (or number) of species overlapping each grid cell. We scaled these scores to biome level by dividing the score of each pixel by the score of the highest-scoring pixel within the same biome. Our biome-scale adjustments highlight several key areas for conserving temperate and xeric-adapted amphibians, which are not visually apparent in our global-scale maps.
New publication (PDF here*) in collaboration with Sky Button from Washington State University published in Global Change Biology: An integrative synthesis to global amphibian conservation priorities.
Human activities are driving many species to the brink of extinction, and the current distribution of protected areas only weakly alleviates pressure on threatened species. This discrepancy reflects the presence of protected areas on lands available instead of the ecological, evolutionary, or conservation values of species present. Habitat loss consequently continues to impact threatened species, as illustrated by geographic patterns of biodiversity loss for amphibians.
Given the need to better align the boundaries of protected areas with at-risk biodiversity, we assessed the importance of various factors for identifying global and biome-level conservation priority areas, specifically for amphibians. We identified, mapped, and ranked areas of critical conservation importance for all amphibian species on earth using a new integrative tool that scores the urgency of conserving each species and location based on a combination of species characteristics and ecoregion-level human impacts. Our integrative approach is novel in that it accounts for likely threats to Data Deficient species, considers the irreplaceability of unique species that are phylogenetically isolated, and addresses the localized conservation implications of species endemicity and projected future human impacts to an ecoregion.
For comparison, we also mapped and ranked amphibian biodiversity using species richness and an Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) score proxy. Our integrative approach predicted key regions for amphibian conservation that were not apparent when using a simple species richness or EDGE score proxy-based approach.
Relative conservation priority scores for amphibians using species richness (a), EDGE score proxy (b), and the integrative approach (c). We calculated priority scores for each approach by summing the scores (or number) of species overlapping each grid cell. The spatial distribution of high-scoring pixels differed considerably among the three approaches, with the integrative and EDGE score proxy approaches suggesting higher conservation priorities in the Paleotropics than the species richness approach
Furthermore, by scaling conservation priority scores relative to biome, we identified several temperate and xeric regions of crucial yet overlooked conservation importance for amphibians. Until global amphibian diversity is thoroughly catalogued, we recommend using our integrative scoring approach to set geographic priorities for amphibian habitat protection, while acknowledging that this approach may be complemented by others (e.g., EDGE scores). Our study provides an avenue for avoiding common pitfalls of more simplistic species richness-based approaches for conservation planning, and can be used to improve the future design of protected areas.
Conservation priority scores for each pixel relative to other pixels within the same biome, for the species richness (a), EDGE score proxy (b), and integrative scoring approach (c). We calculated global-scale priority scores for each approach by summing the scores (or number) of species overlapping each grid cell. We scaled these scores to biome level by dividing the score of each pixel by the score of the highest-scoring pixel within the same biome. Our biome-scale adjustments highlight several key areas for conserving temperate and xeric-adapted amphibians, which are not visually apparent in our global-scale maps.
This new approach is a game changer for amphibian conservation in northeast Asia, as it highlight areas that are usually ignored from conservation priotities.
Details of conservation priorities for amphibians in northeast Asia.
*Clicking on this link is considered as a private request to the authors
