Bonner, Jeffrey P.

English

The University of Kansas: Journals@KU

122 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2007 BONNERKINGS PLAY CHESS ON FANCY GLASS STOOLSAnyone know that sentence? It’s a mnemonic device, a short-hand way of remembering the categories scientists use to classifyall life on Earth. The first letters of each word are the keys:KINGDOM, PHYLUM, CLASS, ORDER, FAMILY,GENUS, and SPECIESNow, if I said that half of an entire kingdom was going tobecome extinct in the next five years — say, the AnimalKingdom — there would be widespread global panic. Littlewonder, as it would be the end of life on this planet as we knowit. On the other hand, if I told you that we just lost anotherspecies, you might shrug your shoulders. You might figure thatlosing a single species is a little like popping a rivet on an air-plane. Planes have oodles of rivets. You wouldn’t want to lose toomany, and you wouldn’t want to lose an important one — likethe last rivet holding the wing on. But losing an occasional rivetisn’t exactly catastrophic.Where we have problems is toward the middle of our cat-egories. For example, what if we only lose half a “Class” of ani-mals? A Class isn’t as broadly encompassing as a Kingdom or aPhylum, but it takes in a lot more than a species or a Genus. Islosing half a Class a catastrophe, or is it just another poppedrivet?C O M M E N T A R YWhat Do We Lose If We Lose the Frogs?1Jeffrey P. BonnerPresident, Saint Louis ZooSt. Louis, Missouri 63110The Fire Salamander (Salamandra salamandra) is IUCN-Red-listed as being of “Least Concern” in view of its wide distribution, tolerance of adegree of habitat modification, presumed large population, and because it is unlikely to be declining fast enough to qualify for listing in a morethreatened category. However, even such species need to be monitored carefully, as changes in status can occur rapidly.CAROLE SAUCIER1 Reprinted with permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, copyright2006.Well, we’re about to find out. In the next five to ten years,about half of the different kinds of animals that make up theClass known as amphibians probably will become extinct. Thereare about 6,000 known species in the class of amphibians: frogs,toads, and salamanders take in most of them. As I write this, 32percent of those 6,000 are threatened, and another 23 percentare believed to be threatened (we don’t have quite enough datato make the call with absolute certainty).Amphibians face many of the same problems that otherthreatened species face: Habitat loss, climate change, pollution,and so on. But they also face a unique challenge. There is a fun-gus, which was born in Africa, that is sweeping our planet. It’scalled the chytrid fungus, and wherever it arrives, it kills about80 percent of the amphibians in the area within a year. It is lethalonly at certain altitudes, so it won’t destroy all of the world’samphibians, but more than half is a pretty conservative estimate.Scientists working with the St. Louis Zoo just confirmedthat it’s here in Missouri. The fungus cannot be stopped in thewild. Our only hope is to get to the amphibians before the fun-gus arrives and bring them into zoos and aquariums for breed-ing and safe-keeping. The hope is that the fungus subsequentlywill run its course, after which the animals can be released again.Call it “protective custody.”We do not know what the assault of the chytrid fungusmeans for the web of life that sustains us. Frogs and their kin areboth predators and prey. They are critically important in sustain-ing the delicate balance of nature. But are they just another rivetor do they keep the wings on the plane? The skin of amphibiansis more permeable than ours — things pass through it fairly eas-ily — so they have developed some unique biological strategiesto protect themselves. For example, their skin produces a widevariety of substances that kill microbes and viruses.IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2007 123COMMENTARYThe Southern Bell Frog (Litoria raniformis) is endangered in Australiaand listed as such on the IUCN Red List. However, introduced pop-ulations in New Zealand currently are doing well — but may be sus-ceptible to the chytrid fungus, which has been documented in NewZealand during the past decade.JENNIFER M. GERMANOJENNIFER M. GERMANOThe Maud Island Frog (Leiopelma pakeka) is endangered in New Zealand and listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List.JENNIFER M. GERMANO124 IGUANA  •  VOLUME 14, NUMBER 2  •  JUNE 2007Last year, 14 of these substances, taken from just a handfulof different frog species, were tested in a lab; three of the 14showed a remarkable capacity to completely inhibit HIV infec-tions. I was surprised that a discovery that shows such promisefor inhibiting the mucosal transmission of AIDS didn’t make thenews, but maybe I shouldn’t be: The fact that we’re going to havesome very silent nights on this planet in just a few short yearshasn’t attracted much attention, either.Contemplating the silence that will replace the thunderousevening chorus of amphibians’ calls is bad enough. Even worseis that with the loss of those species, we will lose so many curesfor so many things. And it is worse still to imagine what losinghalf of the world’s species of amphibians may mean as we strug-gle to keep our living airplane from disintegrating.When I studied biology in high school, I had a delightfulmental image of those Kings Playing Chess while sitting On thoseFancy Glass Stools. Now it turns out that we are very much likethose kings: Idling away our time when we should be respondingto a horrible threat to our Kingdom. It is not too late to save many— perhaps most, maybe even all — of the amphibians. They arecomparatively easy to find and keep healthy in zoos and aquari-ums until it’s safe to release them back into the wild.The Saint Louis Zoo, for example, has returned thousands ofPuerto Rican Crested Toad (Bufo lemur) tadpoles to the pools oftheir homeland. We also are working in Ecuador to create a survivalcenter in Quito, and we have teamed up with other zoos to createa survival center in rural Georgia for amphibians of North America.And right here, at one of the centers of the zoo’s WildCare Institute,we are working to save Missouri’s rapidly declining population ofHellbenders (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis).In this struggle, time is short, and we need your awarenessand support. Call us at the St. Louis Zoo, and we’ll tell you howyou can help.BONNERThis juvenile Ozark Hellbender (Cryptobranchus alleganiensis) at the St.Louis Zoo WildCare Institute is part of an effort to save this species.Declining populations throughout this “near-threatened” species’ rangeare attributable to habitat degradation, predation on eggs and larvae byexotic species, and agricultural run-off that might interfere with nor-mal reproduction.Captive-breeding programs, including that at the St. Louis Zoo, areworking to reestablish the critically endangered Puerto Rican CrestedToad (Bufo lemur) in its natural habitat.JAN P. ZEGARRAJAN P. ZEGARRAJAN P. ZEGARRATHERESA CROW, MISSOURI STATE UNIVERSITY

What Do We Lose If We Lose the Frogs?

Biodiversity Informatics

https://journals.ku.edu/iguana/article/download/17694/15954

What Do We Lose If We Lose the Frogs?

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