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- Amphibian extinction threatens Latin America’s biodiversity
Amphibian extinction threatens Latin America’s biodiversity
Guillermo Ramírez
PANAMA CITY, Panama - Scientists and environmentalists are concerned about the possible imminent extinction of more than half of the planet's 6,000 species of amphibians (also known as batrachians) and have called upon the international community to work harder to avert what they see as the greatest threat to amphibian survival since the disappearance of the dinosaurs.
Gathered for the opening of the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Centre in Valle de Anton, 150 km south-east of Panama City, environmentalists like Kevin Zippel warned that more than half of the world's amphibian species are in imminent danger of extinction. In the last 29 years, 122 amphibian species have been lost, compared to five species of birds and no mammal species. Zippel told DPA that this could signal the greatest amphibian survival crisis in the Earth's history.
He also told EFE that their disappearance has a direct effect on Latin America, whose tropics are home to 60 percent of the world's amphibian species and 75 percent of the world's amphibian species under threat, mainly frogs, toads, salamanders, and caecilians (worm-like amphibians).
Zippel pointed out that batrachians may play a larger role in an ecosystem than all mammals combined, explaining that "They are a source of food for other animals and help to control mosquitoes and other insects".
Edgardo Griffith, a Panamanian research associate with the Houston Zoo, which supplied funding for the centre, told AFP that amphibians in Latin America are threatened by pollution, pathogenic (disease-causing) fungi, and, above all, by the loss of their habitat. The new centre will attempt to protect at least 60 endangered species, among them the Panamanian golden frog, the Ecuadorian horned frog, and the masked tree frog, as well as a variety of jungle-dwelling toads.
According to La Estrella, the centre also hopes to encourage the most endangered species to breed by creating detailed reproductions of their habitat, while scientists from all over the world also search for a solution to the problem of pathogenic fungi.
Source: http;//infosurhoy.com
