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Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species » (1st Edition)

Book cover image of Amphibian Declines: The Conservation Status of United States Species by Michael Lannoo

Authors: Michael Lannoo
ISBN-13: 9780520235922, ISBN-10: 0520235924
Format: Hardcover
Publisher: University of California Press
Date Published: June 2005
Edition: 1st Edition

Author Biography: Michael Lannoo

Michael Lannoo is Professor at the Muncie Center for Medical Education,
Indiana University School of Medicine. He is author of Status and Conservation of Midwestern Amphibians (1998) and Okoboji Wetlands: A Lesson in Natural History (1996).
In 2001, he was awarded the Parker/Gentry Award for Conservation Biology by The Field Museum of Natural History.

Book Synopsis

This benchmark volume documents in comprehensive detail a major environmental crisis: rapidly declining amphibian populations and the disturbing developmental problems that are increasingly prevalent within many amphibian species. Horror stories on this topic have been featured in the scientific and popular press over the past fifteen years, invariably asking what amphibian declines are telling us about the state of the environment. Are declines harbingers of devastated ecosystems or simply weird reflections of a peculiar amphibian world?
This compendium—presenting new data, reviews of current literature, and comprehensive species accounts—reinforces what scientists have begun to suspect, that amphibians are a lens through which the state of the environment can be viewed more clearly. And, that the view is alarming and presages serious concerns for all life, including that of our own species.
The first part of this work consists of more than fifty essays covering topics from the causes of declines to conservation, surveys and monitoring, and education. The second part consists of species accounts describing the life history and natural history of every known amphibian species in the United States.

	Preface
Pt. 1	Conservation essays	1
1	Diverse phenomena influencing amphibian population declines	3
2	Why are some species in decline but others not?	7
3	Philosophy, value judgments, and declining amphibians	10
4	Embracing human diversity in conservation	15
5	Declining amphibian populations task force	17
6	Meeting the challenge of amphibian declines with an interdisciplinary research program	23
7	Biology of amphibian declines	28
8	Declines of Eastern North American woodland salamanders (Plethodon)	34
9	Decline of northern cricket frogs (Acris crepitans)	47
10	Overwintering in northern cricket frogs (Acris crepitans)	55
11	Repercussions of global change	60
12	Lessons from Europe	64
13	Risk factors and declines in northern cricket frogs (Acris crepitans)
14	Ultraviolet radiation	87
15	Xenobiotics	89
16	Variation in pesticide tolerance	93
17	Lucke renal adenocarcinoma	96
18	Malformed frogs in Minnesota : history and interspecific differences	103
19	Parasites of North American frogs	109
20	Parasite infection and limb malformations : a growing problem in amphibian conservation	124
21	Pine silviculture	139
22	Commercial trade	146
23	Houston toads and Texas politics	150
24	Amphibian conservation needs	168
25	Amphibian population cycles and long-term data sets	177
26	Landscape ecology	185
27	Conservation of Texas spring and cave salamanders (Eurycea)	193
28	Lessons from the tropics	198
29	Taxonomy and amphibian declines	206
30	Conservation systematics : the bufo boreas species group	210
31	Factors limiting the recovery of boreal toads (Bufo b. boreas)	222
32	Southwestern desert bufonids	237
33	Amphibian ecotoxicology	241
34	Museum collections	244
35	Critical areas	247
36	Creating habitat reserves for migratory salamanders	260
37	Population manipulations	265
38	Exotic species	271
39	Protecting amphibians while restoring fish populations	275
40	Reflections upon amphibian conservation	277
41	Distribution of South Dakota anurans	283
42	Nebraska's declining amphibians	292
43	Museum collections can assess population trends	295
44	Monitoring salamander populations in great smoky mountains national park	300
45	North American Amphibian Monitoring Program (NAAMP)	307
46	Evaluating calling surveys	314
47	Geographical information systems and survey designs	320
48	Impacts of forest management on amphibians	326
49	Monitoring pigment pattern morphs of northern leopard frogs	328
50	The National Amphibian Conservation Center	339
51	A thousand friends of frogs : its origins	341
52	Of men and deformed frogs : a journalist's lament	344
Pt. 2	Species accounts	349
	Introduction	351
	Anura	381
	Caudata	601
	Factors implicated in amphibian population declines in the United States	915
	Conclusion	926