title: Citizen Science Program Shows Urban Areas Have Lower Occurrence of Frog Species, but Not Accelerated Declines.
abstract: Understanding the influence of landscape change on animal populations is critical to inform biodiversity conservation efforts. A particularly important goal is to understand how urban density affects the persistence of animal populations through time, and how these impacts can be mediated by habitat provision; but data on this question are limited for some taxa. Here, we use data from a citizen science monitoring program to investigate the effect of urbanization on patterns of frog species richness and occurrence over 13 years. Sites surrounded by a high proportion of bare ground (a proxy for urbanization) had consistently lower frog occurrence, but we found no evidence that declines were restricted to urban areas. Instead, several frog species showed declines in rural wetlands with low-quality habitat. Our analysis shows that urban wetlands had low but stable species richness; but also that population trajectories are strongly influenced by vegetation provision in both the riparian zone and the wider landscape. Future increases in the extent of urban environments in our study area are likely to negatively impact populations of several frog species. However, existing urban areas are unlikely to lose further frog species in the medium term. We recommend that landscape planning and management focus on the conservation and restoration of rural wetlands to arrest current declines, and the revegetation of urban wetlands to facilitate the re-expansion of urban-sensitive species.
authors.affiliation: Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Martin J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Westgate
authors.affiliation: Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Ben C
authors.initials: BC
authors.lastname: Scheele
authors.affiliation: Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.|ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ikin
authors.affiliation: ACT and Region Frogwatch, Ginninderra Catchment Group, Canberra, ACT, 2615, Australia.
authors.forename: Anke Maria
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Hoefer
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Land and Water, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: R Matthew
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Beaty
authors.affiliation: Environment and Planning Directorate, ACT Government, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Murray
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.affiliation: Institute for Applied Ecology, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Will
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Osborne
authors.affiliation: NSW Office of Environment and Heritage, Queanbeyan, NSW, 2620, Australia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hunter
authors.affiliation: Fenner School of Environment and Society, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rayner
authors.affiliation: ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia.|School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Centre for Integrative Ecology, Deakin University, Melbourne Burwood Campus, Burwood, VIC, 3125, Australia.
authors.forename: Don A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Driscoll
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001315:Australia; D044822:Biodiversity; D003256:Community Participation; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D005260:Female; D008297:Male; D011157:Population Dynamics; D011898:Ranidae / Q000502:physiology*; D014507:Urbanization / Q000639:trends*; D053833:Wetlands