Madidi National Park in Bolivia is one of South America’s most amphibian-rich protected areas, new research has found.
The park is home to at least 127 species of amphibians, the study’s authors write, representing nearly 46% of Bolivia’s total amphibian diversity.
Madidi’s diversity is a reflection of the park’s “extraordinary altitudinal gradient,” Robert Wallace, co-author of the study and an ecologist at the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society, told Mongabay in an email.
Spanning an area of 18,958 square kilometers (7,320 square miles), the park ranges in elevation from 180 meters (590 feet) in the Amazonian lowlands, to towering mountain peaks at 6,044 m (nearly 20,000 ft) in the Andes. This creates a “wide variety of habitats with different climate conditions,” Wallace told Mongabay.
“At the scale of amphibians, this variety of conditions creates very distinct scenarios, where different species eventually emerge as a result of adaptations to each particular environment,” Wallace said.
Today, amphibians are one of the world’s most threatened groups of animals, facing pressures from habitat loss, climate change, fungal diseases and the illegal wildlife trade. This is why documenting amphibian diversity in places like Madidi is crucial, the researchers write.
To establish a baseline, Mauricio Ocampo, lead author of the study from the Institute of Ecology in La Paz in Bolivia, Wallace and their colleagues scoured various scientific publications, technical reports, photographs and museum collections for records of amphibians. They also surveyed 15 sites within Madidi between 2015 and 2017 as part of the “Identidad Madidi” expedition. This expedition previously added nearly 1,400 records of plants and animals to Madidi.
In the latest study, the team confirmed the presence of 127 amphibian species in Madidi. Of these, three frog species are new records for Bolivia: the canelos tree frog (Boana appendiculata), diadem robber frog (Pristimantis diadematus), and Jiménez’s robber frog (Pristimantis lacrimosus).
Fifteen species are also first records for Madidi, including the Demerara Falls tree frog (Boana cinerascens) and Cochranella nola, a type of glass frog.
Moreover, 10 amphibian species could be entirely new to science. This initial hypothesis of the frogs’ novelty is based on physical traits like body size, weight and color that differ from other known frogs, Wallace said.
The researchers are conducting several analyses, including genetic studies and comparisons of vocalizations, to confirm whether these amphibians are truly new to science.
The researchers also documented 31 amphibian species in the areas surrounding the park, which they say could also be found inside Madidi. The park’s amphibian checklist is also likely to grow longer as more surveys are conducted, the researchers write, and Madidi could surpass other megadiverse South American national parks like Yasuní in Ecuador and Manu in Peru in amphibian diversity.
“This would position Madidi as the most diverse protected area in terms of amphibian diversity,” the authors write.
Banner image of Manaus slender-legged tree frog (Osteocephalus taurinus) by Moraes L. J. C. L. et al. via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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