An examination of amphibian sensitivity to environmental contaminants: are amphibians poor canaries?
Nearly two decades ago, the global biodiversity crisis was catapulted to the front pages of newspapers with the recognition of worldwide amphibian declines. Amphibians earned their appellation, 'canaries in a coal mine', because of apparent high sensitivity to human-mediated environmental change. The most frequently cited causes for high susceptibility include permeable skin, a dual aquatic-terrestrial life cycle and a relatively rudimentary immune system. While some researchers have questioned the basis for the canary assertion, there has been no systematic evaluation of amphibian sensitivity to environmental challenges relative to other taxa. Here, we apply a database representing thousands of toxicity tests to compare the responses of amphibians relative to that of other taxonomic groups. The use of standardized methods combined with large numbers of identical challenges enables a particularly powerful test of relative effect size. Overall, we found that amphibians only exhibit moderate relative responses to water-borne toxins. Our findings imply that, as far as chemical contaminants are concerned, amphibians are not particularly sensitive and might more aptly be described as 'miners in a coal mine'. To the extent that amphibian declines have been mediated by chemical contaminants, our findings suggest that population losses and extinctions may have already occurred in a variety of taxa much more sensitive than amphibians.
Department of Biology, University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD 57069, USA. jacob.kerby@usd.edu
Jacob L
JL
Kerby
Kathryn L
KL
Richards-Hrdlicka
Andrew
A
Storfer
David K
DK
Skelly
D000663:Amphibians / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D016208:Databases, Factual; D004785:Environmental Pollutants / Q000633:toxicity*; D006801:Humans; D007928:Lethal Dose 50; D011157:Population Dynamics; D018675:Toxicity Tests; D014481:United States; D014484:United States Environmental Protection Agency
D004785:Environmental Pollutants