This is one of the findings of a study that analyzes the present and future distribution of anurans (tailless amphibians, i.e., frogs and toads) in Brazil's Atlantic Rainforest and Cerrado (savanna) biomes in the context of climate change due to continuous global warming.
A paper on the study has been published in the journal Ecology and Evolution. The first author is herpetologist Tiago da Silveira Vasconcelos, a researcher at São Paulo State University's School of Sciences (FC-UNESP) in Bauru, Brazil.
Anuran - Species - Atlantic - Rainforest - % At present, 550 anuran species are known to inhabit the Atlantic Rainforest (80% of them endemic), and 209 are known to be present in the Cerrado. After removing species with fewer than five occurrence records, Vasconcelos worked with spatial distribution data for 350 species in the Atlantic Rainforest and 155 species in the Cerrado.
"In this manner, we were able to identify the Atlantic Rainforest and Cerrado areas with the highest levels of anuran species richness and with unique species composition," Vasconcelos said. "Having identified these areas, we evaluated the anuran communities in current and future climate scenarios in order to determine which areas offered a favorable climate for each of the 505 species analyzed and whether the areas would expand or contract by 2050 and 2070 owing to global warming."
Investigator - Support - São - Paulo - Research The investigator had the support of the São Paulo Research Foundation -- FAPESP through its Research Program on Global Climate Change .
"The first expected impact of climate change on anuran amphibians in the Atlantic Rainforest and Cerrado is the extinction of 42 species due to the complete loss of the areas with favorable climate conditions between 2050 and 2070," Vasconcelos said.