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Photos and observations posted to the website of the Global Amphibian BioBlitz now cover more than 700 species: 10 percent of the world’s frog, toad and salamander species that the social networking effort hopes to track. This success has now spawned a Reptile BioBlitz.
Tag: amphibians
Salamander helps rewrite geologic history of Central & South America
March 20, 2013:
UC Berkeley’s David Wake and colleague Kathryn Elmer at the University of Glasgow analyzed the genetic variability of salamanders that had moved from Central to South America and concluded that they could not have diversified within the 3 million years geologists think the two continents have been connected. They think the Panamanian land bridge formed 23 million years ago.
David Wake and two other Berkeley faculty honored by California Academy
September 28, 2012:
David Wake, amphibian expert and professor emeritus of integrative biology, will receive this year’s Fellows’ Medal, the highest honor of the California Academy of Sciences. Wildlife ecologist Justin Brashares, associate professor of ESPM, and astronomer Steven Beckwith are among 10 newly elected fellows of the academy.
Despite global amphibian decline, number of known species soars
July 30, 2012:
Publicity over the past 25 years about the decline of amphibians worldwide has led to an explosion of research on the causes and exploration to find new species. AmphibiaWeb now counts 7,000 amphibian species, up from 5,000 a mere 12 years ago.
Sierra frog die-off due to dehydrating fungus
April 26, 2012:
UC Berkeley ecologist Jamie Voyles and SF State professor Vance Vredenburg took blood samples from frogs in the Sierra Nevada to track the spread of the deadly chytrid fungus. They found that the fungus disrupts fluid and electrolyte balance in wild frogs, severely depleting the frogs’ sodium and potassium levels and causing cardiac arrest and death.
Can social networking save the world’s amphibians?
May 25, 2011:
Amphibian lovers have teamed up to create a social networking site, the Global Amphibian Blitz, where citizen scientists can submit photographs of amphibians in order to help scientists track their worldwide decline and hopefully find a way to halt it.
