Global Protected Areas as refuges for amphibians and reptiles under climate change.

Protected Areas (PAs) are the cornerstone of biodiversity conservation. Here, we collated distributional data for >14,000 (~70% of) species of amphibians and reptiles (herpetofauna) to perform a global assessment of the conservation effectiveness of PAs using species distribution models. Our analyses reveal that >91% of herpetofauna species are currently distributed in PAs, and that this proportion will remain unaltered under future climate change. Indeed, loss of species' distributional ranges will be lower inside PAs than outside them. Therefore, the proportion of effectively protected species is predicted to increase. However, over 7.8% of species currently occur outside PAs, and large spatial conservation gaps remain, mainly across tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests, and across non-high-income countries. We also predict that more than 300 amphibian and 500 reptile species may go extinct under climate change over the course of the ongoing century. Our study highlights the importance of PAs in providing herpetofauna with refuge from climate change, and suggests ways to optimize PAs to better conserve biodiversity worldwide.

The global distribution of tetrapods reveals a need for targeted reptile conservation.

The distributions of amphibians, birds and mammals have underpinned global and local conservation priorities, and have been fundamental to our understanding of the determinants of global biodiversity. In contrast, the global distributions of reptiles, representing a third of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, have been unavailable. This prevented the incorporation of reptiles into conservation planning and biased our understanding of the underlying processes governing global vertebrate biodiversity. Here, we present and analyse the global distribution of 10,064 reptile species (99% of extant terrestrial species). We show that richness patterns of the other three tetrapod classes are good spatial surrogates for species richness of all reptiles combined and of snakes, but characterize diversity patterns of lizards and turtles poorly. Hotspots of total and endemic lizard richness overlap very little with those of other taxa. Moreover, existing protected areas, sites of biodiversity significance and global conservation schemes represent birds and mammals better than reptiles. We show that additional conservation actions are needed to effectively protect reptiles, particularly lizards and turtles. Adding reptile knowledge to a global complementarity conservation priority scheme identifies many locations that consequently become important. Notably, investing resources in some of the world's arid, grassland and savannah habitats might be necessary to represent all terrestrial vertebrates efficiently.

Publisher Correction: The global distribution of tetrapods reveals a need for targeted reptile conservation.

In this Article originally published, owing to a technical error, the author 'Laurent Chirio' was mistakenly designated as a corresponding author in the HTML version, the PDF was correct. This error has now been corrected in the HTML version. Further, in Supplementary Table 3, the authors misspelt the surname of 'Danny Meirte'; this file has now been replaced.

The distribution of the Bururi Long-fingered Frog (Cardioglossa cyaneospila, family Arthroleptidae), a poorly known Albertine Rift endemic.

The species diversity of the frog genus Cardioglossa (family Arthroleptidae) is concentrated in the Lower Guinean Forest Zone of Central Africa with most of the 19 species occurring in Cameroon and neighboring countries (Amiet 1972a,b; Blackburn 2008; Hirschfeld et al. 2015). These small leaf-litter frogs are typically found in primary or secondary forest, have shrill whistling calls, are characterized by a variety of color patterns, and lay terrestrial eggs that hatch and develop into elongate, stream-adapted tadpoles (Amiet 1972a,b, 1973; Rödel et al. 2001; Hirschfeld et al. 2012). One of the most poorly known species-the Bururi Long-fingered Frog Cardioglossa cyaneospila Laurent, 1950-is also among the most geographically peripheral to the rest of the species diversity. To date, it is known only from two locations in Burundi and four in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, regions in which armed conflicts have long hampered scientific research. In this short contribution, we (1) document both new and long unpublished records of C. cyaneospila, associate these with known museum records, and extend its geographic range, (2) highlight fruitful areas for future field surveys based on predicting an environmental envelope for this species, and (3) summarize what little is known of its natural history.

Assessing the Threat of Amphibian Chytrid Fungus in the Albertine Rift: Past, Present and Future.

Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), the cause of chytridiomycosis, is a pathogenic fungus that is found worldwide and is a major contributor to amphibian declines and extinctions. We report results of a comprehensive effort to assess the distribution and threat of Bd in one of the Earth's most important biodiversity hotspots, the Albertine Rift in central Africa. In herpetological surveys conducted between 2010 and 2014, 1018 skin swabs from 17 amphibian genera in 39 sites across the Albertine Rift were tested for Bd by PCR. Overall, 19.5% of amphibians tested positive from all sites combined. Skin tissue samples from 163 amphibians were examined histologically; of these two had superficial epidermal intracorneal fungal colonization and lesions consistent with the disease chytridiomycosis. One amphibian was found dead during the surveys, and all others encountered appeared healthy. We found no evidence for Bd-induced mortality events, a finding consistent with other studies. To gain a historical perspective about Bd in the Albertine Rift, skin swabs from 232 museum-archived amphibians collected as voucher specimens from 1925-1994 were tested for Bd. Of these, one sample was positive; an Itombwe River frog (Phrynobatrachus asper) collected in 1950 in the Itombwe highlands. This finding represents the earliest record of Bd in the Democratic Republic of Congo. We modeled the distribution of Bd in the Albertine Rift using MaxEnt software, and trained our model for improved predictability. Our model predicts that Bd is currently widespread across the Albertine Rift, with moderate habitat suitability extending into the lowlands. Under climatic modeling scenarios our model predicts that optimal habitat suitability of Bd will decrease causing a major range contraction of the fungus by 2080. Our baseline data and modeling predictions are important for comparative studies, especially if significant changes in amphibian health status or climactic conditions are encountered in the future.