The Conservation Status Of Amphibians In The West Indies

Abstract

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.

Conserving The Puerto Rican Herpetofauna

“…The Puerto Rican northwestern karst topography is similar to that in Cockpit Country of Jamaica, Los Haitises of Hispaniola, and the Viñales region of western Cuba (Hedges, 1999).…”

“…The Cordillera Central extends in an east-west direction from Sierra de Cayey in the southeast running almost without interruptions to Mayagüez, which lies close to the west coast. Sierra de Luquillo, an isolated upland region in the northeast, and the largest natural protected area of Puerto Rico, shelters montane rainforests at lower elevations and cloud forests and elfin woodland at the highest elevations; one of the largest tracks of elfin woodland in the Caribbean is found in these mountains (Hedges, 1999).…”

Amphibians Of Cuba: checklist and geographic distributions

“…4 and thus it will be a synonym. In not any posterior work those changes in taxonomy are done, and Hedges and Díaz (2011), Estrada (2012), Hedges (2013) and Frost (2014) have included E. auriculatus and E. principalis in their respective lists of Cuban species. Moreover, Padial et al (2014) maintained E. principalis in the auriculatus group and in high relation to E. auriculatus in all their trees based on four loci for E. auriculatus and three distinct loci for E. principalis.…”

“…Díaz and Cádiz (2008) accepted as a good species E. ionthus, formerly a subspecies of E. varians, but not the other two subspecies in order to avoid confusions in the taxonomy. Hedges and Díaz (2011), Estrada (2012), Hedges (2013) and Frost (2014) added in their respective lists of Cuban species both the subspecies elevated to species by Hedges et al (2008). Padial et al (2014) used E. olibrus based on several sequences deposited in GenBank.…”

“…Díaz and Cádiz (2008) preferred the conservation of the subspecific status of E. z. erythroproctus, while Hedges and Díaz (2011), Estrada (2012), Hedges (2013) and Frost (2014) included E. erythroproctus in their respective lists, as Padial et al (2014) determined that E. erythroproctus belongs to the zugi species series. Based on the last publications, we maintain E. erythroproctus in our list.…”