Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species

Front Cover
Michael J. Lannoo
University of California Press, Jun 15, 2005 - Nature - 1094 pages
This benchmark volume documents in comprehensive detail a major environmental crisis: rapidly declining amphibian populations and the disturbing developmental problems that are increasingly prevalent within many amphibian species. Horror stories on this topic have been featured in the scientific and popular press over the past fifteen years, invariably asking what amphibian declines are telling us about the state of the environment. Are declines harbingers of devastated ecosystems or simply weird reflections of a peculiar amphibian world?

This compendium—presenting new data, reviews of current literature, and comprehensive species accounts—reinforces what scientists have begun to suspect, that amphibians are a lens through which the state of the environment can be viewed more clearly. And, that the view is alarming and presages serious concerns for all life, including that of our own species.

The first part of this work consists of more than fifty essays covering topics from the causes of declines to conservation, surveys and monitoring, and education. The second part consists of species accounts describing the life history and natural history of every known amphibian species in the United States.
 

Contents

DECLINES 22 13 Risk Factors and Declines
75
Biology of Amphibian Declines 14 Ultraviolet Radiation
87
Influencing Amphibian Raymond D Semlitsch
93
Philosophy Value
103
and Steve Giambrone CAUSES 59 David M Hoppe
109
A Growing Problem
124
Pine Silviculture
139
Commercial Trade
146
Evaluating Calling Surveys
314
Geographical Information Systems
320
Impacts of Forest Management
326
The National Amphibian
339
Introduction
351
Ascaphidae
382
Dendrobatidae
440
Leptodactylidae
491

Amphibian Conservation
168
Amphibian Population Cycles
177
Landscape Ecology
185
Conservation of Texas Spring
193
Taxonomy and Amphibian
206
Factors Limiting
222
Southwestern Desert Bufonids
237
Museum Collections
244
Creating Habitat Reserves
260
Exotic Species
271
Reflections Upon Amphibian
277
Distribution of South Dakota
283
Nebraskas Declining
292
Monitoring Salamander
300
North American Amphibian
307
Microhylidae
501
Pelobatidae
508
Pipidae
522
Rhinophrynidae
599
Amphiumidae
642
Cryptobranchidae
648
Plethodontidae
656
Proteidae
866
Rhyacotritonidae
874
Salamandridae
884
Sirenidae
908
FACTORS IMPLICATED IN AMPHIBIAN
915
CONCLUSION
926
INDEX
1077
Copyright

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About the author (2005)

Michael Lannoo is Professor at the Muncie Center for Medical Education, Indiana University School of Medicine. He is author of Status and Conservation of Midwestern Amphibians (1998) and Okoboji Wetlands: A Lesson in Natural History (1996). In 2001, he was awarded the Parker/Gentry Award for Conservation Biology by The Field Museum of Natural History.