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Introduction
I study evolutionary ecology and conservation of biodiversity.
Additional affiliations
January 2008 - June 2016
January 2002 - January 2005
August 1992 - January 2001
University of Miami
Publications
Publications (109)
Amphibian ecology and distribution are strongly correlated with climate. Regional patterns of amphibian biodiversity
are intimately linked to temperature, evapotranspiration rate, and clines in humidity. While amphibians are and will
continue to be adversely affected by recent and projected changes in climate, research suggests that adaptation
may...
As the most threatened vertebrate class on earth, amphibians are at the forefront of the biodiversity crisis, with the recognition of global amphibian declines and extinctions dating back several decades now. The current Amphibian Conservation Action Plan is adopting two strategies to address the goal of the amelioration of the amphibian crisis: th...
The problem of global amphibian declines has prompted extensive research over the last three decades. Initially, the focus was on identifying and characterizing the extent of the problem, but more recently efforts have shifted to evidence-based research designed to identify best solutions and to improve conservation outcomes. Despite extensive accu...
We describe a new species of very small (male body length 22.0–22.8 mm), green treefrog in the pelodryadid genus Litoria Tschudi from lowland rainforest on the southern margin of Papua New Guinea's central cordillera. The new species is morphologically most similar to Litoria leucova, a small green treefrog known only from the north-flowing Sepik R...
The commercial trade in frogs and their body parts is global, dynamic and occurs in extremely large volumes (in the thousands of tonnes/yr or billions of frogs/yr). The European Union (EU) remains the single largest importer of frogs’ legs, with most frogs still caught from the wild. Amongst the many drivers of species extinction or population decl...
The loss of biodiversity due to overexploitation is well known, but a review and regulation of species used in the frogs’ legs trade has yet to be accomplished. This problem relates to supply (the capture and trade of wild populations) and demand (the main consumer being the EU). The EU’s responsibility should not be ignored, since unsustainable im...
The commercial trade in frogs and their body parts is global, dynamic, and occurs in extremely large volumes (in the thousands of tonnes/yr or billions of frogs/yr). The European Union remains the single largest importer of frogs’ legs, with most frogs still caught from the wild. Among the many drivers of species extinction or population decline (e...
Emerging infectious diseases are on the rise in many different taxa, including, among others, the amphibian batrachochytrids, the snake fungal disease and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) virus, responsible for Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in mammals. Following the onset of the pandemic linked to COVID-19, eas...
Frogs of the genus Microhyla include some of the world's smallest amphibians and represent the largest radiation of Asian microhylids, currently encompassing 50 species, distributed across the Oriental biogeographic region. The genus Microhyla remains one of the taxonomically most challenging groups of Asian frogs and was found to be paraphyletic w...
The southern river terrapin, Batagur affinis is one of the world's 25 most endangered freshwater turtle species. The major portion of the global population is currently found in peninsular Malaysia, with the only remnant Indochinese population in southern Cambodia. For more than a decade, wild nests in this remnant Cambodian population have been fe...
Southeast (SE) Asia holds high regional biodiversity and endemism levels but is also one of the world's most threatened regions. Local, regional and global threats could have severe consequences for the future survival of many species and the provision of ecosystem services.
In the face of myriad pressing environmental problems, we carried out a r...
Aim
Amphibians exhibit two basic reproductive modes, terrestrial and aquatic, each with different ecophysiological constraints related to evaporative water loss. We hypothesize that these fundamental niche differences will generate strong geographical patterns at the global scale in response to spatial heterogeneity in temperature and water availab...
Assessing species' vulnerability to climate change is a prerequisite for developing effective strategies to conserve them. The last three decades have seen exponential growth in the number of studies evaluating how, how much, why, when, and where species will be impacted by climate change. We provide an overview of the rapidly developing field of c...
Elephants are widely recognized as ecosystem engineers. To date, most research on ecosystem engineering by elephants has focused on Loxodonta africana and Loxodonta cyclotis , and the role of Elephas maximus is much less well-known. We here report observations of anuran eggs and larva in water-filled tracks (n=20) of E. maximus in Myanmar. Our obse...
Amphibians are important components of ecosystems worldwide and are already being negatively affected by contemporary rapid changes in climate. Climate strongly affects the distribution, abundance, and ecology of amphibian species. Changes in climate will have impacts on amphibian biodiversity that are not uniform across the globe. We highlight geo...
Parental care has evolved many times in multiple taxa and, by definition, enhances offspring survivorship. Anurans exhibit a diverse array of parental care behaviors, but studies examining their adaptive significance in an evolutionary context are limited. The critically endangered bush frog, Raorchestes chalazodes (Rhacophoridae), only breeds insi...
Parasites are essential components of ecosystems and can be instrumental in maintaining host diversity and populations; however, their role in trophic interactions has often been overlooked. Three apicomplexan parasite species of Sarcocystis (S. singaporensis, S. zamani, and S. villivillosi) use the reticulated python as their definitive hosts and...
Ansonia hanitschi is a small, stream-breeding toad endemic to Borneo. Little is known about its ecology or behavior. We documented diurnal activity patterns and habitat use, nocturnal habitat use, and body sizes of A. hanitschi near streams and in forests on Gunung Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, on the island of Borneo. We identified 12 unique diurnal...
The Burmese roofed turtle (Batagur trivittata) is one of the world's most endangered turtles. Only one wild population remains in Myanmar. Based on field observations, wild breeders are thought to number around a dozen. Combined in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts for the species have raised >700 captive turtles over a decade predominantly fro...
Background
One Health (OH) is an interdisciplinary collaborative approach to human and animal health that aims to break down conventional research and policy ‘silos’. OH has been used to develop strategies for zoonotic Emerging Infectious Diseases (EID). However, the ethical case for OH as an alternative to more traditional public health approaches...
A
Survey Methods and Analysis.
B
Responses to Conceptual Question.
C
Response to Priorities Question.
D
Interview Question Guides.
(DOC)
The global amphibian trade is suspected to have brought several species to the brink of extinction, and has led to the spread of amphibian pathogens. Moreover, international trade is not regulated for ~98 % of species. Here we outline patterns and complexity underlying global amphibian trade, highlighting some loopholes that need to be addressed, f...
Accumulating impacts
Anthropogenic climate change is now in full swing, our global average temperature already having increased by 1°C from preindustrial levels. Many studies have documented individual impacts of the changing climate that are particular to species or regions, but individual impacts are accumulating and being amplified more broadly....
Predicting climate change impacts on biodiversity is a major scientific challenge, but doing so is important for assessing extinction risk, developing conservation action plans, providing guidance for laws and regulations, and identifying the mechanisms and patterns of impact to inform climate change adaptation. In the few decades since the threat...
Predator and prey relationships are dynamic and interrelated. Thus, any offensive behaviour will vary according to differing defensive behaviours, or vice versa, within each species in any predator–prey system. However, most studies are one-sided as they focus on just one behaviour, that of either the predator or prey. Here, we examine both predato...
An organism’s morphology is driven by selection on function while being constrained by phylogenetic and developmental factors as well as functional trade-offs. If selection on function is strong and solutions limited, then convergence is expected. In this paper we quantify head shape in a group of ecologically diverse snakes (homalopsid snakes) dif...
Malayopython reticulatus (formerly Python reticulatus) ranges throughout Southeast Asia from the Nicobar Islands in India to the Philippines and eastern Indonesia (Auliya et al. 2002. Natur- wissenschaften 89:201–213; Reynolds et al. 2014. Mol. Phylog. Evol. 71:201–213). As Earth’s longest snake, M. reticulatus occu- pies the niche of a large terre...
Amphibians require specific habitats for breeding and loss or degradation of such habitats can negatively affect reproductive success. Oviposition site selection within a habitat is also important as site quality is linked to larval survivorship and metamorphic success. We investigated oviposition site preferences of the stream-breeding frog Limnon...
The effects of climate change on biodiversity are increasingly well documented, and many methods have been developed to assess species' vulnerability to climatic changes, both ongoing and projected in the coming decades. To minimize global biodiversity losses, conservationists need to identify those species that are likely to be most vulnerable to...
Pandemic plans recommend phases of response to an emergent infectious disease (EID) outbreak, and are primarily aimed at preventing and mitigating human-to-human transmission. These plans carry presumptive weight and are increasingly being operationalized at the national, regional and international level with the support of the World Health Organiz...
Conservation science needs to engage the general public to ensure successful conservation interventions. Although online technologies such as Twitter and Facebook offer new opportunities to accelerate communication between conservation scientists and the online public, factors influencing the spread of conservation news in online media are not well...
Amphibians exhibit extraordinarily diverse sets of reproductive strategies among vertebrates. Understanding life history strategies in an evolutionary framework is lacking for many amphibian species in the tropics. Here, we report a novel reproductive mode where adult frogs enter hollow internodes of bamboo via a small opening, deposit direct devel...
Hatching, the life history switch point between embryonic and larval or subadult stages, has traditionally been regarded as a fixed event in an organism's development. This notion has been challenged by reports of environmentally cued hatching in recent years, which show embryos improve fitness by hatching in response to mortality risks. Here, we p...
Background/Question/Methods
The relationship between predator and prey is one that is constantly evolving. Dynamics of this interaction are fundamental to our understanding of behavior in both species. However, majority of studies only focus on examining behavior from the predator’s or prey’s perspective. A particular type of predator-prey intera...
AimTo apply mathematical models to the task of predicting extinction risk for species currently listed as ‘Data Deficient’ (DD) by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). We demonstrate this approach by applying it globally to amphibians, the vertebrate group recognized as being most extinction threatened and having the large...
Most animals encourage independence in their offspring at the earliest possible date. Invariably, the goal is to minimize energy output and maximize offspring survival. Parental investment tends to evolve only when offspring’s survival is jeopardized by environmental threats that attentive parenting can mitigate, such as hungry predators, scarce or...
Tropical forests continue to be felled and fragmented around the world. A key question is how rapidly species disappear from
forest fragments and how quickly humans must restore forest connectivity to minimize extinctions. We surveyed small mammals
on forest islands in Chiew Larn Reservoir in Thailand 5 to 7 and 25 to 26 years after isolation and o...
The arboreal frog, Chiromantis hansenae (Family: Rhacophoridae), is one of only a handful of South‐East Asian amphibian species reported with parental care. We present the first systematic observational and experimental study confirming offspring benefits as a result of this care, which has a number of unusual life‐history characteristics. Eggs are...
Amphibian trade is known to facilitate the geographic spread of pathogens. Here we assess the health of amphibians traded in Southeast Asia for food or as pets, focusing on Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), ranavirus and general clinical condition. Samples were collected from 2,389 individual animals at 51 sites in Lao PDR, Cambodia, Vietnam and...
A new microhylid frog in the genus Oreophryne is described from southern New Guinea. It is a small species (males to 22 mm snout-urostyle length (SUL), females to 27 mm SUL) distinguished from congeners by having a cartilaginous connection between the procoracoid and scapula, no webs between fingers, basal webs mainly between toes 3 and 4 and betwe...
The flora and fauna of Southeast Asia are exceptionally diverse. The region includes several terrestrial biodiversity hotspots and is the principal global hotspot for marine diversity, but it also faces the most intense challenges of the current global biodiversity crisis. Providing reviews, syntheses and results of the latest research into Southea...
Determining how climate change will affect global ecology and ecosystem services is one of the next important frontiers in environmental science. Many species already exhibit smaller sizes as a result of climate change and many others are likely to shrink in response to continued climate change, following fundamental ecological and metabolic rules....
Ingerana rajae, new species, is found in Bukit Baka-Bukit Raja National Park, West Kalimantan, Borneo, and is characterised by its large size, dorsum covered with tubercles, no clear distinction of the dorsolateral area, tympanum completely concealed under skin, and fi ngers and toes ornamented with widely enlarged tips with a circum-marginal groov...
In response to the recent rediscovery of Barbourula kalimantanensis, which is currently the only known lungless frog, a number of biologically important aspects of the species were examined and its taxonomy and conservation status was reviewed. Based on the species’ ecological requirements, habitat restrictions and recent severe habitat loss, we pr...
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We agree with Smith et al. that basic biological information is the cornerstone of CITES effectiveness and sustainable resource management, and that scientists should be encouraged to select CITES-listed species as research taxa. However, many of the most important and delicate issues for CITES go far beyond biology of species under threat. Biologi...
We estimate the phylogenetic relationships among all six recognized species of the genus Staurois based on 16S rRNA sequences (̃522 bp) for 92 specimens from Borneo and the Philippines. Our preferred phylogenetic tree inferred from Maximum Parsimony and Bayesian methods reveal six major clades within the genus leading to recognition of S. natator,...
Recent behavioral experiments aimed at understanding the evolutionary foundations of human cooperation have suggested that
a willingness to engage in costly punishment, even in one-shot situations, may be part of human psychology and a key element
in understanding our sociality. However, because most experiments have been confined to students in in...
International wildlife trade remains a lead-ing threat to biodiversity conservation (1) and is a common vector for infectious diseases (2, 3) and invasive species (4) that also affect agriculture, livestock, and public health. With 175 member countries, the Con-vention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) is...
Southeast Asia’s widespread species offer unique opportunities to explore the effects of geographical barriers to dispersal on patterns of vertebrate lineage diversification. We analyzed mitochondrial gene sequences (16S rDNA) from a geographically widespread sample of 266 Southeast Asian tree frogs, including 244 individuals of Polypedates leucomy...
We examined common male mating calls and portions of two mitochondrial genes (16S and cytochrome b) of three wide-ranging Southeast Asian anurans to determine whether populations separated by 1,600 km are conspecifi c. For one species (Polypedates leucomystax), calls are signifi cantly different, but genetic distances are relatively low. For the ot...
Phylogenetic relationships resolved in this study showing all of the terminal taxa utilized. Depicted is the MCCT and ML topology with divergence times estimated using all six calibration points and standard deviations of 5.0 for their prior distributions (as in Fig. 2). Nodes are at the inferred median heights. Closed circles indicate high Bayesia...
The complex history of Southeast Asian islands has long been of interest to biogeographers. Dispersal and vicariance events in the Pleistocene have received the most attention, though recent studies suggest a potentially more ancient history to components of the terrestrial fauna. Among this fauna is the enigmatic archaeobatrachian frog genus Barbo...
Aim Invasive species often exhibit a highly non-random suite of traits relative to non-invasive taxa, and these biases reflect strong selection at a series of steps along the invasion pathway. Here we investigate traits that are favoured in the first of these steps: the introduction of species outside their native geographic range. We use the globa...
Amphibians and reptiles will be adversely affected by projected rapid changes in climate in the next decades. Here, we review
the known and potential impacts of climate change on the Southeast Asian amphibians and reptiles and make mitigation recommendations
for both research and policy. Current amphibian and reptile distributions and ecologies mir...
Habitat loss and fragmentation can have severe negative and irreversible effects on biodiversity. We investigated the effects of forest fragmentation on frog diversity in Singapore because of its high rates of deforestation and the demonstration that frogs are some of the most sensitive species to habitat degradation. We surveyed frog species in 12...
Cited By (since 1996):63, Export Date: 26 November 2013, Source: Scopus
Fragmentation of Singapore’s forests as a result of industrialization has caused changes in microclimates in forest remnants. These changes can cause the decline and redistribution of frogs since their semi-permeable skin makes them particularly vulnerable to microclimatic fluctuations. In this study, through surveys of frog species in four parks,...