Silent Springs: Why Are All the Frogs “Croaking”?

Matthew C Fisher

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000198

Abstract

Silent Springs: Why Are All the Frogs “Croaking”?

Highlights

Amphibians became the most ancient class of land-dwelling vertebrates when, 360 million years ago, primitive amphibia such as Ichthyostega first hauled themselves out of their aquatic environment
Extinction in Our Times: Global Amphibian Decline is a 304-page book comprising ten chapters that set out the key events that led to a realisation that amphibian declines were real, but were occurring globally
It was here that researchers began to piece their separate stories together to reveal a unifying theme: Amphibian species were going extinct at rates that far exceeded background extinction, and were above those seen in other classes of vertebrates

Summary

Introduction

Amphibians became the most ancient class of land-dwelling vertebrates when, 360 million years ago, primitive amphibia such as Ichthyostega first hauled themselves out of their aquatic environment. During the 1990s, the Spanish researcher used to climb the Sierra de Guadarrama each year to study the mating choruses of midwife toads for his PhD. Extinction in Our Times: Global Amphibian Decline is a 304-page book comprising ten chapters that set out the key events that led to a realisation that amphibian declines were real, but were occurring globally.

Results

Conclusion