Conservation Of The Herpetofauna On The Dutch Windward Islands: St. Eustatius, Saba, And St. Maarten

Powell, Robert

doi:10.1163/ej.9789004194083.i-439.76

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…The conservation of West Indian amphibians has been addressed in a large number of recent reviews. Most of these have appeared in the journal Applied Herpetology, including general reviews (Hedges, 2006a;Wilson et al, 2006) and others focused on specific islands or groups of islands: Antigua, Barbuda, and Redonda (Daltry, 2007), Dominica (Malhotra et al, 2007), the Dutch Windward Islands (Powell, 2006), the French West Indies (Lorvelec et al, 2007), Grenada and the Grenadines (Daudin and de Silva, 2007;Henderson and Berg, 2006), Puerto Rico (Joglar et al, 2007), and the Virgin Islands (Perry and Gerber, 2006;Platenberg and Boulon, 2006). Besides those reviews, one of us (S.B.H.)…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Conservation Status Of Amphibians In The West Indies

Díaz¹

2011

Conservation of Caribbean Island Herpetofaunas Volume 1: Conservation Biology and the Wider Caribbean

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There are 196 species of amphibians known from the West Indies, 188 of which are native. With only a few exceptions, all of those native species are endemic to single islands or island banks and most are restricted to a small region within an island such as a single mountain top. The native species are members of the following families: Aromobatidae (1 species), Bufonidae (12 sp.), Hylidae (9 sp.), Eleutherodactylidae (161 sp.), Leptodactylidae (3 sp.), and Strabomantidae (2 sp.). The recent Global Amphibian Assessment found that 84% of West Indian amphibian species are threatened and that 71% are in the two highest threat categories, Endangered and Critically Endangered. The remote areas where many species occur constrain monitoring efforts, but remarkably, 49 species (26% of all native species) have not been observed in at least 10 years and 31 species (16%) in at least 20 years. Much-needed surveys will almost certainly find some of those species, but five species have not been found despite intensive search efforts, and are likely extinct -for unknown reasons. Small distributions and declining habitat area and quality were the most important considerations in determining conservation status. Many species are contained within national parks and other protected areas, but the effectiveness of the protected areas varies from essentially no protection to moderately good protection. Unfortunately, most of the critically endangered species occur in countries (e.g., Haiti) where protected areas have low effectiveness. Deforestation and habitat modification continue to be the most serious and widespread threats, although the impacts of an introduced fungal pathogen and climate change are being carefully monitored. For unexplained reasons, the largest conservation agencies, The Nature Conservancy and Conservation International, have yet to establish programs of any significance in countries of the Caribbean region (e.g., Haiti) where the biodiversity crisis is the most severe. Nearly all of the biological data used in determining the conservation status of species comes from the field of systematics and taxonomy rather than ecology, yet this fact has yet to be fully appreciated by the culture of conservation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Conservation Status Of Amphibians In The West Indies

Díaz¹

2011

Conservation of Caribbean Island Herpetofaunas Volume 1: Conservation Biology and the Wider Caribbean

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“…The wide distribution of the species has been taken to be a testament of its dispersal abilities (Powell 2006). In combination with particular life-history traits related to its reproductive mode (direct developer, continuous reproduction ;Ovaska 1991;Bourne 1997;Ortega et al 2005) this has previously been seen as proof of its colonization potential.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-invasive invaders from the Caribbean: the status of Johnstone’s Whistling frog (Eleutherodactylus johnstonei) ten years after its introduction to Western French Guiana

2010

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“…It is particularly important to protect island ecosystems, where alien reptiles have produced substantial negative impacts and whose native biodiversity is highly exposed to the threat of alien species (Rodda et al 1999;Powell 2011;Smith et al 2012b;Silva-Rocha et al 2015;Bellard et al 2017;Moser et al 2018;van Wilgen et al 2018). Management activities on islands, excluding targeted eradication post-introduction, will need to be able to detect any potential alien reptiles that arrive on the island, to provide effective protection against these novel alien species (García-Díaz et al 2017b;Scott et al 2017).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reptiles are a notable group of emergent alien species responsible for serious environmental impacts in recipient regions worldwide, especially on islands (Rodda et al 1999;Christy et al 2010;Powell 2011;Smith et al 2012a;Kraus 2015). Alien reptiles are frequently transported both unintentionally (i.e., as stowaways) and intentionally (e.g., through the pet trade), and the accelerating volume of global traffic has increased their opportunities for introduction into new regions (Kraus 2009;Powell 2011;Helmus et al 2014;Capinha et al 2017;Moser et al 2018). In this work, we use a candidate survey methodology (RBAs) to detect alien reptiles.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Low detectability of alien reptiles can lead to biosecurity management failure: a case study from Christmas Island (Australia)

García‐Díaz¹,

Ross²,

Vall‐llosera³

et al. 2019

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When we assume that contemporary management actions will be effective against the global rise of emerging alien species, we can develop management complacency, which leads to potentially disastrous outcomes for native biodiversity. Here, we propose the use of the probability of detection as a metric to assess the feasibility of management actions for alien species. We explore how detectability can influence the management of alien reptiles, a group of emergent alien vertebrates globally. We use a Rapid Biological Assessment method (time-limited transects) to estimate the probability of detection for alien reptiles present on Christmas Island (Australia). Across the five species studied, we found low probabilities of detection and poor explanatory capacity of the individual covariates included in our models. These findings indicate that management options to deal with alien reptiles are limited due to the potential high cost and low efficacy associated with low probabilities of detection. Strict preventive strategies, firmly espousing the principles of adaptiveness and precautionary policies, combined with early detection and biosecurity response activities are needed to address the emergence of alien reptiles. Our research was focussed on alien reptiles on islands, but the rise of new pools of alien species from all taxonomic realms across the world suggests that our conclusions may be applicable more generally. Further research is called for to explore the applicability of our conclusions and recommendations to other taxonomic groups and regions of the world. A peer-reviewed open-access journal NeoBiotaPablo García-Díaz et al. / NeoBiota 45: 75-92 (2019) 76

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Conservation Of The Herpetofauna On The Dutch Windward Islands: St. Eustatius, Saba, And St. Maarten

Cited by 7 publications

References 10 publications

The Conservation Status Of Amphibians In The West Indies

The Conservation Status Of Amphibians In The West Indies

Non-invasive invaders from the Caribbean: the status of Johnstone’s Whistling frog (Eleutherodactylus johnstonei) ten years after its introduction to Western French Guiana

Low detectability of alien reptiles can lead to biosecurity management failure: a case study from Christmas Island (Australia)

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