State of the Amphibia 2020: A review of five years of amphibian research and existing resources

Abstract

Amphibians are a clade of over 8,400 species that provide unique research opportunities and challenges. With amphibians undergoing severe global declines, taking stock of our current understanding of amphibians is imperative. Focusing on 2016–2020, we assessed trends in amphibian publishing, conservation research, systematics, and community resources. We show that while research and data availability are increasing rapidly, information is not evenly distributed across research fields, clades, or geographic regions, leading to substantial knowledge gaps. A complete review of amphibian NCBI resources indicates that genomic data are poised for rapid expansion, but amphibian genomes pose significant challenges. A review of recent conservation literature and cataloged threats on 1,261 species highlight the need to address land use change and disease using adaptive management strategies. We underscore the importance of database integration for advancing amphibian research and conservation and suggest other understudied or imperiled clades would benefit from similar assessments.

Two new glassfrogs (Centrolenidae:Hyalinobatrachium) from Ecuador, with comments on the endangered biodiversity of the Andes

“…Amphibian diversity and endemicity are particularly accentuated in the Andes––roughly 70% of the 1,120 reported species are endemic ( CEPF, 2021 ). The Andes also boasts the highest rate of new amphibian species discoveries of any biogeographic region in South America ( Vasconcelos et al, 2019 ; Womack et al, 2021 ). Yet, amphibians are particularly susceptible to anthropogenic impacts ( Duellman & Trueb, 1994 ; Lips et al, 2006 ; Pounds et al, 2006 ; Scheele et al, 2019 ), which are immense in the Andes.…”

Six new species of Pristimantis (Anura: Strabomantidae) from Llanganates National Park and Sangay National Park in Amazonian cloud forests of Ecuador

“…Another significant factor in the current discovery of new species seems to be the deployment of a large group of Ecuadorian amphibian taxonomists working on a hot spot of amphibian diversity ( e.g ., Ortega-Andrade et al, 2015 ; Navarrete, Venegas & Ron, 2016 ; Ramírez-Jaramillo et al, 2018 ; Sánchez-Nivicela et al, 2018 ; Szèkely et al, 2018 ; Páez & Ron, 2019 , Reyes-Puig et al, 2019 ; Valencia et al, 2019 ; Yánez-Muñoz et al, 2019 ; Carrión-Olmedo & Ron, 2021 ; Zumel, Buckley & Ron, 2021 ; Guayasamin et al, 2022 ). This large group of taxonomists, working on several Ecuadorian institutions, would explain why Ecuador is the region with the highest density of new amphibian species described in the world between 2016 and 2020 ( Womack et al, 2022 ).…”

Ongoing amphibian trade into the United States threatens salamander biodiversity

“…To conduct the most accurate, complete analyses, we sought to reconcile this sort of competing nomenclature. As such, we cleaned all of the taxonomic names in our dataset, using the AmphibiaWeb taxonomy as our reference given that AmphibiaWeb is one of the most widely-used resources by amphibian biologists (Womack et al 2022). We first used the AmphibiaWeb taxonomy to automatically convert known synonyms to the preferred AmphibiaWeb nomenclature, where possible.…”