Frogs in the Rainforest
The rain forests of tropical America are not a uniform realm in which frogs are conspicuous elements. Individual frogs can be rare even in places that are home to a wealth of species. In part of the Amazon basin where many species are known to be present, weeks of long night searches may turn up just a few frogs. When I search for frogs in the Amazonian rain forest of Ecuador, I expect to find a dozen or two frogs for every hour I spend wandering through the forest. But Ron Heyer and Ron Crombie, colleagues at the Smithsonian who have searched for frogs in the Brazilian Amazon, may find only one or two frogs for every hour they spend searching. Sometimes the scarcity of frogs is temporary, and heavy rains may suddenly reveal their true abundance. Sometimes they may be patchily abundant, so that when you stumble on the right place you will find them in large numbers. But in many places they are genuinely rare, and the reasons for this are poorly understood. (Forsyth & Miyata, 1984). Photo: PhotoDisc Inc.

Worldwide Decline in Frog Populations
The scientists speculated that where obvious habitat destruction by bulldozer and chain saw wasn't a cause, other, less visible problems were killing the animals: acid rain, drought, pesticides, human exploitation (killing and collecting for food and the pet trade), and new predators, such as fish introduced for sport fishing. A few suggested that ozone layer depletion or global climatic change might be having effects, especially on high-mountain species or on species living on the margins of their natural ranges. (Phillips, 1994). Photo: PhotoDisc Inc.

[ Slash & Burn Agriculture ] [ From the Seat of the Bulldozer ] [ Regrowth in a Tropical Rainforest ]
[ Data Collection in the Amazon ] [ Colonization of the Rainforest ] [ Loving the Rainforest to Death ]
[ Frogs in the Rainforest ] [ Tropical Deforestation & Habitat Destruction ]
[ The Importance of Forests & the Perils of Deforestation ] [ Hamburgers in the Rainforest ]
[ References ] [ PBL Model ] 

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