Global Warming: Frog Extinctions
Monteverde Cloud Forest, Costa Rica

The second in a three-week series of Bio Snapshots covering important new research on global warming and biodiversity.

Global warming is now being blamed for massive extinctions of frogs in Central America. Two-thirds of the 110 species of harlequin frogs here have disappeared in recent decades.

New research in Costa Rica’s Monteverde cloud forest shows that its frogs are dying from outbreaks of a lethal fungus. The fungus thrives in wet, cool daytime conditions. The study suggests that global warming may be fostering such conditions in Monteverde: Higher temperatures would evaporate more water from trees into the local atmosphere, which in turn could increase cloud cover.

Increased cloudiness would make Monteverde shadier and wetter, providing an optimal growth environment for the frog-killing fungus. The research discovered that frog extinctions are occurring in concert with temperature changes.

Paper
“Widespread amphibian extinctions from epidemic disease driven by global warming”
Nature 439, 161-167 (12 January 2006)

Image Credits 
N. and S. America, January 2004 (Blue Marble Next Generation, satellite: NASA Terra, sensor: MODIS)
Monteverde (satellite: NASA Landsat 7, sensor: ETM+)
Golden frog (Forrest Brem)
Harlequin frog (Robert Puschendorf)
Golden toad (Charles H. Smith, USFWS)
Monteverde photo (Raymond Sluiter)

Related Science Bulletins
Global Warming: Butterflies on the Move (January 23, 2006)
Birds of the World in Decline (August 8, 2005)
Cloud Forests on Fire (April 25, 2005)
Global Warming Spurs Heat Waves (December 29, 2004)
Dramatic Amphibian Decline (November 15, 2004)