The general picture presented here on the conservation status and decline trends of Mexican amphibians appears to be disturbing. Rather than pretending to be pessimistic about the future, we aimed to motivate, with this information, development of future studies on these organisms in Mexico. Even though this country represents the fifth largest amphibian fauna in the world, only few scientists, academic institutions, and funding agencies are currently working and investing resources on this vertebrate group. In fact, many Mexican species lack the necessary information to propose more accurate conservation categories. This summary may also be used as a basis to guide future studies because it points out to the taxa that suffer from unfortunate lack of information as well as to those that are under the highest risk and which in consequence need urgent attention. The first step towards the conservation of amphibians in Mexico is to acquire deep knowledge of their basic biology, distribution, taxonomy, demography, and population genetics.A general assessment of the conservation status and decline trends of Mexican amphibians. Biodiversity And Conservation. DOI: 10.1007/s10531-010-9923-9
We present a review on the conservation status and population trends of the 372 amphibian species currently recognized for Mexico. We based our analyses on the information gathered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature-the Global Amphibian Assessment (IUCN-GAA) as well as on available literature about imminent or potential threats to these organisms in Mexico. This country has the fifth largest amphibian fauna in the world and almost 58% of the species that inhabit this country are considered as threatened. We highlight the proportion of species per order, family, and genus that are currently under severe risk in Mexico. In addition, we prepared a detailed list of the main factors that are threatening amphibians in this country. Evidence is provided that the six main mechanisms that are globally leading amphibians to extinction (alien species, over-exploitation, land use change, global changes, pollution, and infectious diseases) are indeed currently operating in Mexico. We discuss the relative importance of each of these causes. We also highlight the paucity of quantitative studies that support the current conservation status of Mexican amphibian species.
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