The global amphibian trade flows through Europe: the need for enforcing and improving legislation

Auliya, Mark; Garcı́a-Moreno, Jaime; Schmidt, Benedikt R.; Schmeller, Dirk S.; Hoogmoed, Marinus Steven; Fisher, Matthew C.; Pasmans, Frank; Henle, Klaus; Bickford, David; Martel, An

doi:10.1007/s10531-016-1193-8

Cited by 49 publications

(58 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…A crucial step in this process is clarifying the evolutionary relationships of the taxa of interest, followed by the collection of basic population, distributional, and life history data for each taxon. Like many tropical amphibians, poison frogs face threats including habitat destruction [15,16] and smuggling for the pet trade [17,18,43]. Despite being one of the better-studied groups of frogs, a surprising number of poison frog species evaluated by the IUCN were classified as "data deficient" (37.5%, 107 of 285 species), hampering basic aspects of their conservation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the context of Anura, Dendrobatidae is moderately diverse, inhabiting a range of habitats and ecological niches throughout Central and South America. Many dendrobatids are unfortunately threatened by a variety of factors including habitat destruction [15,16] and smuggling for the pet trade [17,18], making their conservation an important priority for biologists. Despite heavy popular and scientific interest in dendrobatids, in-depth studies of dendrobatid phylogenetic systematics have become scarce despite the rapid progress of phylogenomics.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Phylogenomic Reconstruction of the Neotropical Poison Frogs (Dendrobatidae) and Their Conservation

et al. 2019

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The evolutionary history of the Dendrobatidae, the charismatic Neotropical poison frog family, remains in flux, even after a half-century of intensive research. Understanding the evolutionary relationships between dendrobatid genera and the larger-order groups within Dendrobatidae is critical for making accurate assessments of all aspects of their biology and evolution. In this study, we provide the first phylogenomic reconstruction of Dendrobatidae with genome-wide nuclear markers known as ultraconserved elements. We performed sequence capture on 61 samples representing 33 species across 13 of the 16 dendrobatid genera, aiming for a broadly representative taxon sample. We compare topologies generated using maximum likelihood and coalescent methods and estimate divergence times using Bayesian methods. We find most of our dendrobatid tree to be consistent with previously published results based on mitochondrial and low-count nuclear data, with notable exceptions regarding the placement of Hyloxalinae and certain genera within Dendrobatinae. We also characterize how the evolutionary history and geographic distributions of the 285 poison frog species impact their conservation status. We hope that our phylogeny will serve as a backbone for future evolutionary studies and that our characterizations of conservation status inform conservation practices while highlighting taxa in need of further study.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenomic Reconstruction of the Neotropical Poison Frogs (Dendrobatidae) and Their Conservation

et al. 2019

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“…Hence, frog legs are not controlled by state or health authorities and no sanitary permits will be issued. Therefore, they could be potential vectors for amphibian diseases (e.g., Bd or Bsal ) and could negatively affect wild amphibian populations via the international trade (Auliya et al., ; Gilbert et al., ; Gratwicke et al., ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stable isotope analyses—A method to distinguish intensively farmed from wild frogs

Dittrich

Struck

Rödel

2017

Ecology and Evolution

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Consumption of frog legs is increasing worldwide, with potentially dramatic effects for ecosystems. More and more functioning frog farms are reported to exist. However, due to the lack of reliable methods to distinguish farmed from wild‐caught individuals, the origin of frogs in the international trade is often uncertain. Here, we present a new methodological approach to this problem. We investigated the isotopic composition of legally traded frog legs from suppliers in Vietnam and Indonesia. Muscle and bone tissue samples were examined for δ15N, δ13C, and δ18O stable isotope compositions, to elucidate the conditions under which the frogs grew up. We used DNA barcoding (16S rRNA) to verify species identities. We identified three traded species (Hoplobatrachus rugulosus, Fejervarya cancrivora and Limnonectes macrodon); species identities were partly deviating from package labeling. Isotopic values of δ15N and δ18O showed significant differences between species and country of origin. Based on low δ15N composition and generally little variation in stable isotope values, our results imply that frogs from Vietnam were indeed farmed. In contrast, the frogs from the Indonesian supplier likely grew up under natural conditions, indicated by higher δ15N values and stronger variability in the stable isotope composition. Our results indicate that stable isotope analyses seem to be a useful tool to distinguish between naturally growing and intensively farmed frogs. We believe that this method can be used to improve the control in the international trade of frog legs, as well as for other biological products, thus supporting farming activities and decreasing pressure on wild populations. However, we examined different species from different countries and had no access to samples of individuals with confirmed origin and living conditions. Therefore, we suggest improving this method further with individuals of known origin and history, preferably including samples of the respective nutritive bases.

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“…Trade in amphibians for pets is rising (Schlaepfer et al, 2005;Carpenter et al, 2014;Herrel and van der Meijden, 2014), but such inferences are made on a small number of databases that actually record trade in select areas of the world (Auliya et al, 2016). Most of the world's trade in amphibians likely goes unrecorded (Herrel and van der Meijden, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Have a Pet Amphibian? Insights From YouTube

et al. 2019

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The desire to own a pet amphibian is growing, and with it a growth in amphibian trade and in negative impacts on native populations, including disease transmission and invasive amphibian populations. We know very little about how or why people choose amphibians as pets, but amphibian owners share large numbers of videos on freely accessible platforms, such as YouTube. We aimed to use videos of captive amphibians to determine which species are kept, their life-history stage and the types of videos uploaded. We watched and categorized 1,162 videos by video type, type of amphibian behavior and amphibian taxonomy (superfamily, family, and species). We used data on the amphibian trade from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), on conservation status from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list, and on potential environmental impact from published Environmental Impact Classification of Alien Taxa (EICAT) records, to determine potential conflicts of owning pet amphibians. We recorded 173 captive species in 847 videos with a taxonomic overrepresentation of salamandroids and pipoids, and an underrepresentation of ranoids and plethodontoids. When compared to videos of wild amphibian species, videos of captive animals featured disproportionate amounts of adults feeding, being handled and moving. The videos watched had a smaller proportion of threatened amphibian species, but a higher proportion of invasive species, than would be expected by chance, with the proportion present in CITES appendices (18%) being non-significant. We suggest that such data can be used to profile potential pets for trade and attempt to avoid conflicts with threatened and highly impacting alien species.

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The global amphibian trade flows through Europe: the need for enforcing and improving legislation

Cited by 49 publications

References 66 publications

Phylogenomic Reconstruction of the Neotropical Poison Frogs (Dendrobatidae) and Their Conservation

Phylogenomic Reconstruction of the Neotropical Poison Frogs (Dendrobatidae) and Their Conservation

Stable isotope analyses—A method to distinguish intensively farmed from wild frogs

Why Have a Pet Amphibian? Insights From YouTube

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