amphibian decline – Desdemona Despair

Geographical pattern of the primary drivers of deteriorating status among amphibians. a,b, The primary drivers of deteriorating status among amphibians during 1980–2004 (482 species; a) and 2004–2022 (306 species; b). Cell colour was determined by the primary driver impacting the most species. Where two primary drivers equally contribute to a cell, an intermediate colour is shown. The stars indicate where the primary driver is undetermined or there are numerous primary drivers. The cell area is 7,775 km2. Graphic: Luedtke, et al., 2023 / Nature

October 29, 2023

Climate change emerges as major driver of amphibian declines, new research finds – “It’s a gut punch and an awakening”

By JoAnn Adkins 4 October 2023 (FIU) – Amphibians are in trouble and in desperate need of conservation action, according to a new global assessment of the world’s amphibian population. Salamanders are experiencing the greatest decline in numbers, but frogs, toads, newts, and salamanders throughout the Neotropics — extending from South Florida and Caribbean islands […]

Number of generic extinctions per century among in different classes of vertebrates. The low number of reptiles and amphibia, which underestimate the magnitude of extinction pattern, is probably the result of the lack of information in earlier centuries, where very few species had been described. The dotted line represents the background extinction rate. Graphic: Ceballos and Ehrlich, 2023 / PNAS

September 30, 2023

Study finds human-driven mass extinction is eliminating entire branches of the tree of life – “We’re losing our only known living companions in the entire universe”

By Sean Cummings 18 September 2023 (Stanford News) – The passenger pigeon. The Tasmanian tiger. The Baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin. These rank among the best-known recent victims of what many scientists have declared the sixth mass extinction, as human actions are wiping out vertebrate animal species hundreds of times faster than they would otherwise […]

Maps showing the global distribution of animals with decreasing (top), stable (middle) or increasing (bottom) populations combining data from all taxonomic groups. Numbers of species were counted within each 1° × 1° grid cell covering the globe, using a Behrmann’s equal area projection. Graphic: Finn, et al., 2023 / Biological Reviews

May 29, 2023

Global loss of biodiversity is significantly more alarming than previously suspected – “Almost half of animals on Earth for which assessments are available are currently declining. To make matters worse, many of the animal species that are thought to be non-threatened from extinction are in fact progressively declining”

23 May 2023 (Queen’s University Belfast) – A new study led by researchers from Queen’s University Belfast has shown that the global loss of biodiversity caused by human industrialisation is significantly more alarming than previously thought. The global-scale analysis has been published in the journal Biological Reviews. The study looked at changes in the population densities […]

Map showing Biodiversity Intactness Index for the year 2020 at 0.25° resolution. The global average is 77 percent. Data: Natural History Museum, 2022. Graphic: WWF / ZSL

October 27, 2022

WWF’s Living Planet Report 2022 reveals devastating 69 percent average drop in wildlife populations since 1970 – “We have cut away the very foundation of life and the situation continues to worsen”

TORONTO, 12 October 2022 (WWF-Canada) – Monitored wildlife populations — mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish — have seen a devastating 69 per cent drop on average since 1970 according to WWF’s Living Planet Report (LPR) 2022. The report highlights the stark outlook of the state of nature and urgently warns governments, businesses and the public to take […]

Banner from the WWF web site on 29 December 2021 showing more than 40,000 species are threatened with extinction, comprising 28 percent of all assessed species. Graphic: WWF

December 30, 2021

WWF: Looming mass extinction could be biggest since the dinosaurs – “One million species could go extinct within the next decade, which would be the largest mass extinction event since the end of the dinosaur age”

29 December 2021 (DW) – Ever-growing environmental threats are pushing many animals and plants to the brink of extinction — the scale of which hasn’t been seen since dinosaurs died out, the German branch of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said on Wednesday. The stark warnings came as WWF Germany released its “Winners and Losers of 2021,” an annual […]

Geese landing in the restored wetland on Viola Farm. Matt and Marilyn Spong own a corn-and-soybean farm, located on the Delmarva. Viola Farms has been in Marilyn Spong’s family for well over 150 years. About 15 years ago they started the process of restoring a wetland habitat on their property. Photo: Kayt Jonsson / USFWS / Flickr

February 2, 2020

America’s wetlands: vital, ignored, and now defined away by the Trump administration

By Geena Reed 27 January 2020 (UCS) – Last week, the Trump administration finalized its rollback of the expanded definition of the waters of the United States. Now fewer water bodies, including wetlands and ephemeral streams, will be protected under the Clean Water Act. The quality of more than half of the country’s wetlands and 18 percent of its […]

Study skins of the extinct Lana’i and Kaua’i ‘akiaola. Photo: Paul Sweet / AMNH

December 27, 2019

All of the species declared extinct in the 2010-2019 decade – “The trends that connect these 160 extinctions are true of the biodiversity crisis more generally”

By Ryan F. Mandelbaum 16 December 19 (Gizmodo) – Lonesome George, the last of the Pinta Island tortoises, died in 2012. George’s story is the perfect extinction story. It features a charismatic character with a recognizable face, an obvious villain, and the tireless efforts of naturalists. The population of the Pinta Island tortoise species was […]