Geographical context of forgotten amphibians: Colombian

Abstract

Whereas more than 10% of global amphibian richness is known to occur in Colombia, almost 16% of these species are currently classified as Data Deficient according to the IUCN. These estimates suggest that the available data for a large portion of amphibians occurring in Colombia is insufficient to assess extinction risk. Here we aim to (1) review the available information on the distribution of the Colombian Data Deficient (DD hereafter) amphibians, (2) analyze their geographic distribution, and (3) evaluate the relationship between anthropogenic impact and their current conservation status. For this, we first compiled geographical records for the DD amphibian species using primary sources. Geographical records were obtained mainly from taxonomic descriptions and non-systematic surveys. We then estimated the geographical range and inferred the potential distribution for each species using letsR and MaxEnt, respectively. We quantified the human footprint for each species and tested the relationship between spatial distribution and anthropogenic change across populations. Analyses are here based on 128 of the 129 DD amphibian species that occur in Colombia. We found that most of these species were recently described and have small geographic ranges. A large proportion of these DD amphibians inhabit the Colombian Andes, and their populations have been strongly affected by human activities. Overall, the spatial clustering suggests that many of these species have faced similar environmental and anthropogenic pressures that have contributed to their rareness. We also suggest that the conservation status for several of the analyzed DD amphibians should be changed to account for the threats they face.