DNA Analysis Finds 25 Known, 5 Previously Unknown Frog Species Gone Extinct In Panama Since 1998

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With advanced genetic techniques, researchers have drawn a picture of just how devastating the currently extinction crisis for the world's amphibians has become in a new study published in the Proceedings of the Nation Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Studying frog populations using DNA barcoding in Panama's Omar Torrijos National Park located in El Copé researchers found that 25 known species and 5 unknown species have vanished since 1998. None have returned.

Amphibians are threatened in many parts of the world by pollution, habitat loss, invasive species, over-exploitation, pesticides, and climate change, yet the big killer of the world's amphibians is disease: chytridiomycosis, a fungal disease, is wiping out frogs even in the world's most untouched habitats.

To determine just how devastating chytridiomycosis has become, researchers with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) looked at the well-surveyed Omar Torrijos National Park in Panama. Surveys had discovered 63 species of frogs in the park prior to the disease's arrival. Using DNA barcoding, however, researchers were able to identify 11 species that had been unknown to science, bringing the total to 74 species. Five of the unknown species had also vanished due to the disease.

"It's sadly ironic that we are discovering new species nearly as fast as we are losing them," said Andrew Crawford, former postdoctoral fellow at STRI and member of the Círculo Herpetológico de Panamá, in a press release. "Our DNA barcode data reveal new species even at this relatively well-studied site, yet the field sampling shows that many of these species new to science are already gone here." According to the paper, since arriving the disease has wiped out over 40 percent of the park's total amphibian species, and one-third of the amphibians' evolutionary history. "It's like the extinction of the dinosaurs. The areas where the disease has passed through are like graveyards; there's a void to be filled and we don't know what will happen as a result," says Karen Lips, associate professor at the University of Maryland and co-author. Lips established the first amphibian monitoring programs in the area after the crisis was discovered.

EDIT

http://news.mongabay.com/2010/0719-hance_amphibian_plague.html